Most of us suspect the IT department at work of reading our personal emails on the sly. This is according to Yahoo! Mail, which polled 18,000 adults who have access to email at work in the biggest survey of its kind.

And Yahoo! Mail's figures show that many of us hardly have a better opinion of the people we work with most closely. Almost half of office workers think there is a risk of their colleagues rifling through their inbox for any juicy gossip when they are out of the office.

Yahoo! Mail asked UK workers what their biggest fears are when it comes to sending emails at work. The results show that:

· 61% think that the IT department reads their personal email in secret
· 45% fear colleagues having a nose through their personal emails when they are out of the office or away from their desks. According to the survey, women are much more distrustful than men. 49% of women and 42% of men think that the people they work with are dishonest enough to secretly look through their inboxes
· Almost one in three office workers (31%) think that sending personal emails at work puts them in danger of suffering from the Claire Swire effect - a person they trust forwarding on a personal or intimate email onto other people in the company
· Over a quarter (28%) are afraid of sending a personal email to the boss in error. Women (33%) are much more fearful of making this mistake than men (23%)
· A similar number of office workers (27%) think that they could forward personal emails to fellow workers by mistake

According to Alick Mighall, Head Producer at Yahoo! Mail, "Email paranoia appears to be spreading among UK businesses like wildfire with more and more workers looking over their shoulders whilst at the computer. Shoulder surfing and email snooping are a part of every day office life and workers need to adapt in order to survive in this office jungle. Only the e-savvy will survive!"

Yahoo! Mail solutions to help you avoid shoulder surfers and trouble at work:
· Do not use your work email for personal use, but log onto Yahoo! Mail during your lunch or breaks and use a free email account that can be accessed anywhere
· Lock your screen every time you leave your desk using ctrl/alt/delete buttons
· Using alt/tab buttons will change your screen and avoid shoulder surfing
· Clear your "sent" and "deleted" items regularly, particularly if you have sent an email with a sensitive subject matter
· Buy a computer monitor mirror to keep a view of what's happening behind you!

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