I'm not an academic, but I have worked with a lot of academics and I think most of them would have no concerns about accessing personal data on their work computer. I thought a university would be an example of a very 'friendly' employer.
An example university policy [1]
> 11.5 reasonable personal use of College IT resources is permitted provided such use does not disrupt the conduct of College business or other users. Recreational use of the Halls of Residence network is also permitted, subject to these conditions;
We have a similar policy where I work. I have a personal laptop, but I don't take it to work. I am signed in to my personal GMail account on my work computer, along with many other accounts — like this HN account. If work needed to look at an employee's computer, we'd have someone from IT + someone from HR overseeing the process, and wouldn't look at anything clearly private, e.g. a personal email account. Doing otherwise would be a breach of the GDPR.
An example university policy [1]
> 11.5 reasonable personal use of College IT resources is permitted provided such use does not disrupt the conduct of College business or other users. Recreational use of the Halls of Residence network is also permitted, subject to these conditions;
We have a similar policy where I work. I have a personal laptop, but I don't take it to work. I am signed in to my personal GMail account on my work computer, along with many other accounts — like this HN account. If work needed to look at an employee's computer, we'd have someone from IT + someone from HR overseeing the process, and wouldn't look at anything clearly private, e.g. a personal email account. Doing otherwise would be a breach of the GDPR.
[1] https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/ict/self-service/c...