Dive Brief:

• After the latest revelations about Pennsylvania state prosecutors sharing sexually explicit emails at the office, employees may be tempted to sneak a peek at the computer screen in the next cubicle, according to an article at the Allentown Morning Call.
• If lawyers in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office were sending raunchy and racially charged emails while they were on the clock, many workers may be wondering if such stuff is circulating in their offices, too, the Morning Call reports.
• To some extent, it probably is, say business leaders and experts on employment law. Sending risque emails at work is more widespread than people may realize, they say. With the prevalence of email and social media apps, those actions have found another frontier — one where the employee might be discreet and the evidence deleted, according to the Morning Call.

Dive Insight:

"People think they can get away with things online that they can't in person," Fatima Goss Graves, a senior vice president at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, D.C., told the Morning Call.

Deirdre Kamber Todd, an Allentown (Pa.) attorney who specializes in employment law, said such emails likely circulate among co-workers more than people may think.

"If you could get a really genuine poll, I suspect the amount of pornography that gets sent would be extraordinarily high," she said. Explicit messages don't have to target a particular person to be considered harassment. Depending on the frequency and who is involved, they may work to create an uncomfortable climate for women, said Goss Graves, who is serving on a federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission task force on workplace harassment.

While employers typically have strict policy rules in place regarding use of business computers and accounts, the article points to the importance of HR making sure that those policies are not only in place, but enforced.