Nearly a quarter of all corporate e-mail is personal in nature, and 62 percent of workers send business e-mail from personal accounts, according to a new survey.Seventy-two percent of workers sometimes use their work e-mail accounts to forward jokes, photos, video clips, and other nonwork related messages to coworkers, and another 12 percent of workers said they share music files through corporate e-mail, potentially “violating copyright laws, occupying server storage and eating large amounts of bandwidth,” according to survey authors Mirapoint Inc., an e-mail security vendor, and The Radicati Group Inc., an IT research firm. The Radicati Group talked to 363 corporate e-mail users in a September online survey.Coupled with an April survey finding that 33 percent of corporate e-mail is unsolicited spam, the new survey shows that more than half of all corporate e-mail is not work related, the companies said in a Monday press release.While it may not be surprising that many employees use corporate e-mail for personal reasons, the practice can cause problems, said Craig Carpenter, Mirapoint’s director of corporate marketing and global channels. There’s a perception that “everyone does it,” but the survey attempted to quantify the personal use of corporate e-mail, he said. Forwarding jokes, photos and other personal information to coworkers can expose employers to lawsuits, Carpenter said. “Whether it’s sexually explicit or racially insensitive, there are a myriad of ways it could be inappropriate,” he said.Ninety-seven percent of the respondents said they have personal e-mail accounts, and 25 percent of them said they regularly forward company e-mail messages to personal accounts, and 62 percent said they sometimes send business e-mail from their personal accounts. When workers send company e-mail from personal accounts, they can expose their employers to a number of risks, Carpenter said. He called the percentage of workers using their personal e-mail accounts to send out work-related e-mail “alarming.”Although there may be innocuous reasons for doing so, companies can’t monitor such e-mail messages under compliance rules, and employees can send out company trade secrets or intellectual property through personal e-mail, Carpenter said.“The vast, vast majority of employees … are not trying to do anything wrong,” he said. “People just don’t think about it, but this can be a challenging situation for employers.” By Grant Gross, IDG News Service Related content brandpost Rebalancing through Recalibration: CIOs Operationalizing Pandemic-era Innovation By Kamal Nath, CEO, Sify Technologies Jun 08, 2023 6 mins CIO Digital Transformation brandpost It’s time to evolve beyond marketing to create meaningful metaverse moments Insights on the results of the Protiviti and Oxford University survey: Executive Outlook on the Metaverse, 2033 and Beyond By Kim Bozzella Jun 08, 2023 6 mins Digital Transformation feature 10 hottest IT jobs for salary growth in 2023 The demand for tech workers hasn’t slowed down, as rising salaries reveal the most sought-after tech professionals for 2023, according to data from Dice. By Sarah K. White Jun 08, 2023 8 mins Salaries IT Jobs Careers interview Oshkosh CIO Anu Khare on IT’s pursuit of value The specialty truck maker’s IT chief sees tech-enabled transformation being fueled by a relentless focus on strategic fit and customer value — and passionate business involvement. By Dan Roberts Jun 08, 2023 9 mins Automotive Industry Manufacturing Industry IT Strategy Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe