More than one in five major Japanese companies monitor e-mail messages by executives and rank-and-file employees to block leaks of corporate secrets and customer information, according to a recent Kyodo News survey.
The survey of 100 major Japanese companies found that 22 of them routinely check e-mail messages and 46 make it a rule to have retiring employees sign confidentiality agreements to keep them from leaking secret information they obtained in the course of their jobs.
The firms did not disclose how they monitor their employees' e-mails, but experts say employers commonly install a system that automatically identifies e-mails that contain designated words, such as "classified" or "top secret," as well as the names of new products or technologies.