This is a controversial issue, but in the vast majority of cases, the answer is yes. Most often the employment contracts stipulate that business assets may only be used for business, and anything the employees have created or posses as a result of the business, belongs to the business. It is illegal for the business to open the personal external email of employees, but mail that is sent to the businesses own employee addresses, using the business resources, is fair game: especially considering the employees most probably agreed that they would use it only for work purposes when they signed up to the job. If employees wish to send personal and private email, then they must use their personal email, in non-work hours (lunch breaks, before or after clocking on, etc.) If they use personal email during business hours, thats a breach of most employment contracts and there could be serious consequences. The law gets very cloudy when you start talking about whether the employer can read those personal emails on the personal external email though. Some say that because the employee used the company computer, in work hours, the employer has the right to know everything about that activity, every detail. Others acknowledge a breach of contract, and the right to punish to whatever extent, but not the reading of particular details. Keep in mind the specific contracts of different Jobs and organisations, and the law of different nations may differ in their interpretation of this issue. My above interpretation is from Australia, and the experience and opinion of my business lecturers :P Hope it helps!

Did anyone find the correct answer to this. I have searched high and low and most articles are addressing the issue right now of email privacy. So it seems that per US Code: Title 18 USC 1702, that mail addressed to a person is protected from anyone else opening the mail without the agreement of the person the mail was delivered to. I have a similiar issue, The letter was from the corporation addressed to me, however it was personal information and not work related. This happens many times in larger corporations that have benefit packages. They send 401K and Medical benefit packets to the hotel who then distributes them to the employee. They do not have the right to open such personal mail because no one has the right to see my 401K benefits or my Medical benefits including my social security number. I will let you know what happens in my case, but so far the strongest evidence I have is In Vernars v. Young, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals stated that private individuals, in their place of work, "have a reasonable expectation that their personal mail will not be opened and read by unauthorized persons." If this is true then the company needs to have proof of authorized agents assigned to open mail and procedures put in place to protect the employee from theft or fraud or planting of evidence and so forth.

This is a simple issue of agency law. You are an agent of your employer and mail sent to your employers address is presumed to be business related. There is some controversy over whether mail labeled "confidential" can be opened, but this is a unique case.