5 min read · Updated
Is it legal to sell my company’s employee emails for AI training?
It can be, for records your business owns and may share. Check privacy, contracts and your own promises first.
The short answer
It can be, but only for records your business owns and has the right to share, after you check employee and customer privacy rules. Korra (korra.io) asks every seller to state that right before a listing goes live, and the licence itself is between you and the buyer. This page is general information, not legal advice.
Start with ownership
Email your team sent and received to run your business is usually company property. Records you hold for clients usually are not yours to license, even when they sit in your systems.
Check employee privacy
Privacy law depends on where your staff and customers are. Europe, the UK, Canada and several US states give people rights over personal information, including information inside work email.
Read your employment terms and your staff privacy notice. If they say work email is used only to run the business, a licence for AI training may need notice, consent or advice first.
Check what you promised customers
Customer names and details appear in many threads. Your privacy policy and customer contracts may limit what you can do with them. Changing those promises quietly can cause its own trouble.
Check contracts and confidential material
Leave out anything under a confidentiality agreement, legal advice, trade secrets you want to keep, and anything from a third party that has not agreed.
Ways sellers lower the risk
Leave out direct messages, HR, legal, health and pay. Remove or replace names and contact details. Limit uses and access in the licence, and get advice for your own case.
How it works on Korra
You describe your records in about 5 minutes. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is connected.
Korra turns the description into a listing card with names, emails, phone numbers and towns removed, and reads it before it is published. Approved buyers can see the card and make offers.
You see every offer and approve the one you want, or none. The licence is between you and the buyer. You pay Korra nothing; the buyer pays Korra’s fee.
Korra does not take, open, clean or deliver your records. You and the buyer agree what is shared, how and when.
Questions owners ask
Is work email company property?
Usually the business owns email sent and received to run it, but employees and customers can still have privacy rights over personal information in it. Check the law where they are.
Do I need employee consent?
It depends on the law where your staff work and on your employment terms. Some places require notice or consent; get advice for your case.
Does Korra check that I have the right to license?
Korra asks every seller to state that it has the right to license the records before a listing goes live. Korra is not a law firm and the licence is between you and the buyer.
Sources
See what your data could earn.
Describe your records to Korra and get a starting range. Your files stay in your systems.
What’s my data worth?