Xref: utzoo comp.admin.policy:231 comp.unix.admin:2100 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!n8emr!bluemoon!sbrack From: sbrack@bluemoon.uucp (Steven S. Brack) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy,comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: E-mail Privacy Message-ID: <8XJX32w164w@bluemoon.uucp> Date: 2 Jun 91 19:57:18 GMT References: Sender: bbs@bluemoon.uucp (BBS Login) Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[0][2][4]) Lines: 50 braun@dri.com (Kral) writes: > In article <9tnh_wg@rpi.edu> rodney@sun.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) writes: > >I think so -- since the sender didn't bother to make himself a CC, he's > >really just out of luck. If I fax something to you as my employee and > >throw away the original, can I rummage through your office when you are > >fired to get a copy of the fax? no. How is strolling through the > >backup tapes any different? > > I really wish people would ask their Personnel and/or Legal departments befor > posting stuff like this. If you keep personal stuff in/on company property, > then (*unless* you've been led to believe otherwise) it is *not* private. Th > has been held up on many occasions in court, and makes perfect sense, at leas > to me. I don't see how this can be construed as an invasion of privacy. > That's what *personal* property is for (*your* personal property, now someone > else's). It might help to look at this as a paper memoin an employee's desk. Now, if the employee left it there, then it's fairly obvious that the company has claim on it. But, in this case, it's a question of retrieving the document from backup. That would be more akin to the company going through an employee's desk, without his knowledge, & photocopying anything in it. A company's right to keep copies of personal material without the knowledge or consent of the employees is questionable, to say the least. We could also look at it as being a personal letter the employee took with him when he left (assuming thee-mail was deleted by the employee before his termination), & is now needed for "legal" reasons. In that case, a search & seizure warrant would be required. The use of e-mail is so analogous to paper mail that it is often easier to apply familliar standards that fit quite well, than to invent a new standard. While this does reduce the scope of the problem, the essential question remains: is using archives of employee mail, which the employees probably never consented to, legal? Personally I think it's unethical for a sysadmin to use his tools to access users' personal e-mail without their permission, or a search warrant. If the document is essential to the case, then it is part of the power of discovery to order relevant documents produced, but the relevence & essential nature of the document would have to be decided by an (impartial) judge. I'm not a lawyer, but I have read extensively on privacy law. =========================================================================== Steven S. Brack sbrack@bluemoon.uucp The Ohio State University sbrack%bluemoon@nstar.rn.com sbrack@isis.cs.du.edu ===========================================================================