Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Class Action Suit Against Epson Charges Email Spying Message-ID: <11607@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 1 Sep 90 07:00:00 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 243 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Special Issue: Epson Email Spying, Part 2 of 2 TELECOM Digest Sat, 1 Sep 90 02:35:00 CDT Epson Email - Part 2 of 2 Inside This Issue: Moderator: Patrick A. Townson Re: Class Action Suit Against Epson Charges Email Spying [Many of You] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TELECOM Moderator Subject: Re: Class Action Suit Against Epson Charges Email Spying Date: Sat, 1 Sep 1990 01:00:00 CST Here are more of the many responses received to the op-ed on Epson. This is part 2 of 2 parts. From: "Carl M. Kadie" In comp.dcom.telecom Patrick Townson writes: >Several employees of Epson America have filed a class action suit >against their employer, accusing Epson of spying on them for several >months by monitoring thousands of their electronic messages. I don't think "monitoring" is the right word; I think "spying" is more accurate. Here is how the OED2 defines "monitor": "In more general use: to observe, supervise, or keep under review;" It defines "spy" as: "To watch (a person, etc.) in a secret or stealthy manner;" Regardless of the the legality of Epson's actions, they behaved unethically by spying on their employees. The ethical alternative would have been to 1) tell all employees that e-mail was to be used for business purposes only 2) to tell employees that their e-mail might will be read by management 3) to tell an employee every time his or her e-mail is actually read. When my manager looks over my shoulder while I work, he or she is monitoring. When my manager watches me through the office keyhole, he or she is spying. From: Charles Bryant Organization: Datacode Communications Ltd, Dublin, Ireland In some places (such as Ireland, and I think the UK) it is illegal for the owner of the phone to record conversations without the knowledge and consent of the other party. This obviously implies that an employer is not entitled to record employees' conversations without the consent of both the employees and the parties they call. Is there any similar law in the US? From: Robert E Stampfli Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories I must say that I currently presume that any e-mail I send thru my employee account may, at some point, be read by others, even though my company has strict guidelines about such things. The privacy of telephone conversations, however, is protected by a long history of legal standards and societal mores, which make it a somewhat different animal. For instance, the misguided and untenable Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 provides a legal assumption of privacy with regards to cellular calls even though, in this case, privacy cannot be assured. An employer certainly has the right to control company resources, and that includes at some point the right to listen-in on phone conversations made on company lines. However, if such is done prior to notifying those affected that they have no expectation of privacy, then in my opinion, a privacy violation has occurred and those affected have every right to seek legal redress. That is what the courts are for. Maybe one day, when electronic mail is more mature and accepted, we will employ the same standards with this media. From: peter da silva Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Pat makes a few unfounded assumptions here. I'm not going to comment on the E-mail aspects of things, but there's a bit much big-brother in the following. > Likewise with telephones: Your employer has the legal right to monitor > your business phone calls to evaluate your performance, etc. If you do > not like him listening to your personal calls, then a counter-question > would be in order: why are your personal phone calls being made on > company phone facilities? Because there is no alternative? > Use the payphone in the cafeteria. What payphone? What cafeteria? The nearest payphone is in a Circle-K over a mile away. I use my own Sprint account (via 1-800-877-8000) for long distance calls. Would my employer have the right to tap those? From: David Dick Organization: Software Innovations, Inc. Do you believe it is reasonable for the administrator of their telephone system to record and review all phone calls made on their phone system? How about salary discussions? Do you believe it is reasonable for the people responsible for maintaining offices and meeting rooms to be privy to everything that goes on in those rooms? Including salary discussions and employee discipline and firings? I don't think that the fact that Epson owns the machines that the email was carried on *necessarily* implies that the company or *more importantly* a mere functionary, who is supposed to administer the email facility, is entitled to violate the confidentiality of those communications. I agree that, in the matter of personal use of company machines (or resources of any kind), Epson is entitled to be upset with misappropriation. However, even in the conduct of company business, I don't think it is an absolute that the "company" deserves every detail, and I think an administrator of a communications facility (of whatever kind) is not entitled to eavesdrop, except when authorized for specific purposes (and possibly not even then). From: Thomas Lapp I read an article in {Information Week} which had this as a cover article. The lady in question was upset because she was sending business-related e-mail to person B. Her supervisor intercepted the mail (which was not addressed, nor intended to be seen by him), and after viewing it, fired her for insubordination (and in a way which wasn't exactly professional, either). If I recall that article from memory, she had asked her boss for an account on a public e-mail system so that she could use it to do work from home, or somesuch. He refused. Her message that was intercepted was to someone else in the company asking the procedures for getting this account. I don't think she had actually TOLD the other fellow to get her one, just asking how to go about it. (Shucks, I've done the same thing: send e-mail asking about the procedure before I ask my boss for the okay. If she approves, it gets done even faster, and if she doesn't it isn't a lot of time wasted -- it may be approved later anyway as things change.) I don't disagree with you Patrick, on the idea of not using business resources for personal use. And I agree that anything I type on my company owned terminal and e-mail system has every right to be audited by the company. Same as making personal calls at work. I think that based upon your message and the article I read in {Information Week}, I think that the suit is going for the wrong thing. There seems to be three possible suits here, and only the first two are worth pursuing: Firing the lady in a most unprofessional way, supervisor reading confidential documents (ie. the BUSINESS e-mail message not sent nor intended for him), and the privacy of corporate e-mail in general. I say that the second is worthwhile as well, but I'll save that for another posting if there is any interest. From: kdb@macaw.intercon.com (Kurt Baumann) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Herndon, VA In article <11387@accuvax.nwu.edu>, john@bovine.ati.com (John Higdon) writes: > You should have heard the squeals when we put the hard copy in front > of these people. Offers to pay were ignored -- my company was not in > the telecom reselling business. The point was: we wanted people to > stop using the bloody phone for personal business. It blocked REAL > calls, distracted the person from doing his job cheating us out of the > time we were paying for, and the cost of the calls took the money out > of our pockets. > Everywhere I have gone, people treat the phone on their desk as their > own personal service. It also happens to be handy for use in their > work. Oh well, who wouldn't want to save 100% on his long distance > calls? The above happened to me as well. I made a point of asking people to not use the phone for personal use, quick phone calls were "ok", but certainly not to extend to 90 minutes talking to ones significant other. My pleas went unheard until we shut the long distance off except at my desk. It is sad that things like this happen. However, I hope that there was a policy in place stating that the messages were being monitored. People have come to expect that thier incoming US mail will not be opened while at work, I think that this expectation has been extended to cover Email as well. I don't know what the answer is here, but it seems that some legislation is in order here. From: Linc Madison Organization: University of California, Berkeley I disagree entirely. If you use a piece of company-owned stationery to write a personal letter, the company has no right whatsoever to read it, not even if you use a company-owned pen to write it on company time and use a company postage meter. They can ask you to reimburse them their costs, they can fire you for misuse of their property, but they CANNOT read the message. PERIOD. As to the point about telephone lines, the company does not have the right to monitor its employees' telephone conversations without PRIOR NOTICE AND CONSENT of the employee. I rather doubt that any of these employees was notified and gave consent that any e-mail sent could be monitored and printed out. Furthermore, if I am a guest at someone's house and use her telephone and she (unknown to me) taps the line, she has committed an illegal act. (At least that's how the law reads to me.) It doesn't matter if she let me use the phone under particular conditions which I violated; she has tapped a phone conversation without the consent of either party, and that's illegal, even though it's her phone. The company is entitled to keep records of to whom e-mail was sent and the size of the message. If they are concerned about private e-mail, they have the right to call an employee in and say, "We see that on August 26 at 11:35 you sent 126 KB of e-mail to foo@bar. What was the purpose of this message?" If the employee cannot provide an acceptable answer, the company can take action against the employee (including requesting reimbursement for the cost of sending the e-mail or firing the employee or docking the employee's pay for the time spent). However, unless the employee has made a prior agreement that e-mail is to be used only for business purposes, the employer's case is tenuous except on the misuse of company TIME. If the company reads the e-mail without prior consent, it's wiretapping, it's invasion of privacy, it's illegal, and they deserve to get sued. The right to privacy is in no way contingent on ownership of the premises. ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest Special: Epson Email Spying Part 2 of 2 ******************************