Opening post within an organisation

[rare-nebula]

Can anyone tell me if there is a law around opening post within a large organisation. If a letter is sent addressed to someone, not marked private and confidential, and the company policy is that all post is opened by an administrator, can the recipient have cause for complaint. I will appreciate all views on this. Thank you in advance for taking the time to reply.

[Ethel]

No. Letters and emails addressed to a business address are presumed to be regarding business matters and the person to whom it is addressed is receiving it in the course of his or her employment.

[eash]

The only letters I do not open are those marked private and confidential. Everything else I do.

[dzug]

Even those that are marked private and confidential can be opened by someone who has a reason to do so.

The recipient should not have private mail sent to his work address. If it's work related then it's not private and the company can specify any policy it likes as to whether it gets opened or not and by whom.

[sandmaster]

dzug and the others are right. Most employers will probably respect your privacy but they are at liberty to open the post addressed to the business premises. Even if addressed to an individual and marked P&C it could relate to business matters and if the individual has just started a long holiday it could prove inconvenient or worse if the post is not opened.