Is auto-WiFi transmitting my personal email at work?

[lolkitty808]

Let's say I allow my phone to connect to my office WiFi automatically, and my phone also logs in to my personal Gmail account automatically.

Does that mean that, even if I'm not checking personal email at work, if Gmail was open on my phone when I walked in that morning, now every email that comes into my personal account while I'm sitting in my office with my phone in my pocket, is able to be read by the office IT staff?

Does anyone know HOW Gmail loads on a phone? For example, if I have this phone in my pocket at work, would someone monitoring the WiFi be able to see ALL stored emails in my personal inbox, all the way back for years? Or just the first page of emails? Or just the new ones as they come in? Or would they not be able to see anything unless I actively open an email to read/send it myself?

 

[eyoungren]

Your IT department would be able to see that you connected to Gmail's servers at X time and for X amount of time and that X amount of data was used.

That's it.

Someone monitoring your network that is not IT using a tool like Wireshark would see the same thing.

Is IT monitoring you? Do you suspect someone on your network that is not IT is monitoring you?

If so, unless you have an unencrypted connection the above is all they see. It's unlikely that your connection is unencrypted as that would mean an unsecure connection to Gmail's servers which is not allowed.

But let's assume that it's unencrypted. Whomever is watching would have to get your email address and password (possible through an unencrypted connection) then would have to access your account in some way with this information to see your stuff.

If you have authentication for Gmail turned on (either a code to your device, or an authenticator app) you'd be tipped off to this and would be given a chance to deny the connection.

So. No. No one is reading your email.