E-mail Privacy
michael vincen conca
conca at handel.cs.colostate.edu
Thu May 23 14:42:06 AEST 1991
I am the system administrator for a group of research scientists in the
psychology department here. Today I was presented with a rather touchy
situation:
Aproximately 1 month ago, a certain employee was advised that he/she was
was acting in an inappropriate manner and that they needed to make
certain adjustments in their attitude. A meeting was held between the head
manager and this employee in which the above issue was discussed. All of
this was summarized in a memo which was E-mailed to the employee.
Yesterday, this employee was terminated. He/she was allowed to gather
their things and purge all of their personal files from the system. Today,
my boss asked if it would be possible to retrieve this employee's E-mail
off of backup, find the memo, and print it out in case it was needed as
evidence in a possible court case.
Now for the tough questions.
Is this legal? Is this ethical? If this person still worked
here, I would immediately refuse. But since they don't, do they still
have any rights to their E-mail? Right now, I am leaning towards refusing
because I think a person's E-mail is theirs, regardless of their status
with the organization. Anyone have any other opinions on this?
-Mike
-=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=--=*=-
Mike Conca, Computer Science Dept. * conca at handel.cs.colostate.edu
Colorado State University * conca at 129.82.102.32
"Everyday, as the network becomes larger, the world becomes smaller."
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