E-mail Privacy

[Steven S. Brack]

braun at dri.com (Kral) writes:

> In article <8XJX32w164w at bluemoon.uucp> sbrack at bluemoon.uucp (Steven S. Brack)
> >        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.
> 
> Here, and elsewhere, you state that the backups are made without the employee
> consent.  I disagree with this claim.  The company has me back up the files i
> order to ensure the surviveability of those files in case something happens t
> them.  They pay employees who work on this computer a salary (good, bad, or
> otherwise) to do company work, not to do personal work.  Therefore, they view
> all files on this computer as work related.  If an employee choses to put
> personal stuff on here, and leave it on long enough for it to get backed up,
> then they are either knowingly taking their chances, or are just plain stupid
> (again, we make sure the employees know that their files are *not* private).

        And if I have personal notes or mail in my desk at the office?
        Whose is that?  If the company feels those documents are
        provably vital, then it can always get a court order for them,
        just like it can for paper documents.

> >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.
> 
> I think this is the crux of the debate: can something kept in a company desk 
> on a company supplied computer be considered "personal" (to the employee)?
> Particularly if it were obtained by using company resources (eg: electronic
> mail paid for by the company).  Whereas a radio stored in a desk by an employ
> clearly belongs to the employee (assuming he bought it), message obtained via
> company resources are, IMNSHO, clearly the property of the company.
> 
> (This gets murkier when you consider files whose content was originated by th
> employee in question -- see discussions on intellectual copyrights, etc).
> 
> [IMNSHO - in my not so humble opinion]

        Then, if the company wanted to see the manuscipt it lets you use
        your PC or UNIX account to write, they can?  Most employees
        expect that their employer would treat them as human beings,
        not as slaves to be constantly monitored.  If I sent a document
        in US Mail to someone, then needed a copy of it, if he wouldn't
        give me one, then a court order would be my only resort.  The
        situations are fairly analogous.



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Steven S. Brack     sbrack at bluemoon.uucp        The Ohio State University
sbrack%bluemoon at nstar.rn.com                        sbrack at isis.cs.du.edu
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