I have access to an ex employees private e-mail and password and on occasion I have acessed their e-mail account to " view " e-mail only. Ihave not used this for any other reason but to make sure confidential info from the business was not violated. Is this legal and can it be traced to me ?

If they gave you the password,then yes, it's legal. Whether or not it is allowed by your company would be defined by their policies.

Yes, it can most likely be traced to you. Pretty much everything can be traced when working with computers. If you accessed it over the internet, and it's an Exchange server (Microsoft), then there is a log of the emails you read, what time and day, and even where you connected from (the IP address).

If it's against tcompany policy, I'd suggest not doing it anymore.

I don't think it's right to access another person's mail either personal or business but if you are doing it for work purpose then it's OK.

So you're spying on this person to make sure they're not spying on you? Have some respect for this persons privacy and get rid of that access.

Would you like it if it were done to you?

If your current employees find out this is what you are doing do you think they'll

A: like you more and work harder.
B: get the hell out of your company as soon as possible.

If this is a corporate e-mail account then the company has the right to monitor mail.

But if this is a personal account of someone no longer employed and you do not have permission to access this account then you are breaking the law. And yes it could be traced to you.