The global remote work experiment shows no sign of ending anytime soon. As Europe struggles to contain a deadly second wave of Covid-19, many forward-looking companies have confirmed that their employees will largely be working from home for at least the first quarter of 2021. That means that Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom will continue to dominate the lives of office workers.
WIRED UK
This story originally appeared on WIRED UK.
As you settle down for a long, cold winter of trying to ignore Slack, it’s important to get things in order. From changing privacy settings to putting some limits on those infuriating notifications, here’s how to get some control over Slack.
Slack’s Data Collection
Slack’s business model is very different from the tracking- and advertising-heavy setups of Google and Facebook. Slack makes money by selling premium-tier subscriptions, though there are also free accounts that have limits placed upon them.
But that doesn’t mean Slack doesn’t collect a lot of your data; everything it does collect is listed in its privacy policy. The data Slack gathers will either be information that’s voluntarily given to it (names, emails, messages, and more) or information that’s automatically generated through just using Slack.
Slack collects information about when and how you use its platform. This can be the device and operating system you’re logging in from, your IP address, the webpage you visited before opening Slack in your browser, the types of files you share, and more. Slack may also get some information about you based on what third-party services—for example, Google Drive or Calendar—you connect to it. However, what information is shared is based on each privacy policy
What Your Boss Can and Can’t See
Part of Slack’s success comes from it being a useful store of information—quick updates and messages, which can later be searched and revisited, don’t have to clog up an email inbox anymore. Key to this is Slack not deleting anything. Ever. “By default, Slack never deletes your messages or files, so they’re always accessible,” the company says. (This also applies to free accounts, but only a certain number of messages are searchable).
Control of the messages you send is given to the workspace owner—in most cases this will be your employer. Slack says that it has strict measures, tools, and audits in place to stop employees from accessing messages and other company information.
Workspace owners can decide how long messages are stored for and set limits on what information can and can’t be accessed by your employer in the future. There’s the option for a workspace admin to select messages and files to be automatically deleted after a set amount of time. This can be customized by each channel or direct messages. It’s possible to see your company’s Slack data-retention settings by heading to [Slack channel name].slack.com/account/workspace-settings#retention.
There are also controls on who can access messages within a company. Slack says conversation data can be exported in some circumstances—such as conducting investigations into harassment, following court orders for disclosure, requests under GPDR’s subject access rights, or for audits.
How data is extracted can depend on the type of Slack subscription a company has (if any). It’s possible to check what your company’s settings are for data exports at the bottom of the page on the URL above. Typically it’s possible for workspace owners to export messages and files that are shared in public channels. These are exported as text logs, not in the typical Slack user interface.
It gets harder for someone to export your messages and files once they’re in private channels or DMs. In these instances a workspace owner must contact Slack and apply for permission to export the data. Slack can grant an owner permission to use a “self-serve data export tool.” “Each org owner must ensure that (a) appropriate employment agreements and corporate policies have been implemented, and (b) all use of business exports is permitted under applicable law,” the company says in its guidance on exports.
