Is this legal????

[CSFM]

I have a friend who works for a government health organization, they have had some Emailing problems over the past few months, ie. people sending internal mail with information about what certain people in the company are earning and the benefits they receive and so on.
This has provoked a knee jerk reaction from the company stopping all Emails before the receiver gets them and checking the content of them before sending them on (most of my Emails to her never make it.) I was wondering if this was legal and where the line is drawn into the privacy of the individuals email accounts.

 

[bigrash]

yes, that's perfectly legal. I used to work for human resources and that was a rule. Work email should be only for business purpose, so they have the right.

 

[n0cmonkey]

She has no privacy at work. Sorry. It sucks.

 

[Shagga]

Good question. Here in the UK I know a few ppl who are scared to send e-mails as they are checked. My wife for one! I guess if the company supplies e-mail for the sole use of the company, everything contained within them is the companies business. :frown:

 

[CSFM]

Your e-mail message to:-

lisa....


RE: Subject "Yet another dead hero!"

has been retained by the E-mail System at Australian Hearing.

All retained messages are subject to automated content analysis so the intended
recipient/s may not receive your e-mail.

If your message has a legitimate purpose please reply quoting: T57be4e719fac1d011e4d0
as a reference.

If your message has no legitimate purpose we request that you remove -

lisa


from your mailing list.

*** THIS IS AN AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED MESSAGE ***


This is what I get back... they don't even have the decency to let me know if they scrap it or send it on.
So here is what I have started doing... I write all my Emails into a Word Doc. and put a password on the file that only her and I know. If they attempt to open it they can't !!!

I title the Email something tricky... like "Quote for".... or "Urgent attention of Lisa"...
I have been getting these through as it confuses them... LOL ... I guess that this won't last too long and it is a bit of a pain in the butt for me... But I think it's funny though.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Just so you know, passwording word files should be easy to break

 

[CSFM]

Yeah, you and I know this... but we are talking about some halfwitted government empoyee who has nothing better to do than read others emails... they don't know what they are lookng at let alone try breaking into protected documents.

Not that I think govenment employee's are all half witted...

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Yeah, you and I know this... but we are talking about some halfwitted government empoyee who has nothing better to do than read others emails... they don't know what they are lookng at let alone try breaking into protected documents.

Not that I think govenment employee's are all half witted... >>



Just MOST

 

[CSFM]

Hence the reason they work for the Government... LOL.
Oh well, enough of the bashing of Government employee's... they can't help it. Although my friend isn't half witted, she is quite intelligent and works for this company instead of working for a private company with only profits not people in mind!
She is an Audiologist... ear doctor type thingy! Bachelor of science. So she is quite intelligent... I think my poke is at the managers at the company.... they have no idea at all! Kinda look like this all day >>>

 

[Davegod]

in UK totally legal, and when you really think about it, fair enough. they have a legal responsibility on what happens with their computers.

one thing which i cannot agree with is that organisations are not totally open about it, it should be required to make it obvious that your mail will be looked at if you view it at work. at the moment i think it is just down to a company's policy whether they tell you or not, but in any case often all you get is one email at the start of the year or told once when you get your login/password... so of course people forget.

way round it? do a net search for a program called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), theyll have to ask you to open up attatchments then [encryption] . of course, they can fire you if you dont let em see but means they have to let you know each time, and since it takes them more effort theyll be less happy to indescriminately read other ppls mail, theyll oonly do it when important.

im totally F'd off with the way freedoms are going at the moment. you know they need a court order to open postal mail or tap phone lines (which is actually pretty hard to get), yet ISP's must hand over a lot of info about you if the police ask, no warrant needed, and that includes emails. i'm all for cracking down on e-criminals but they can damn well do it with investigation and police work, not with secret-sevice powers. damn it.

hmmm anyway lol

 

[CSFM]

There are ways around these things... half the fun is finding your way around!

 

[Grunt03]

Yes the government can do anything it wants....................

I wonder who is checking them?

 

[NicColt]

At least there you know, here in Canada they don't even have to mention it, warn us or tell us anyting about anything. Here they can do just about anything they want and you won't even know.

 

[CSFM]

Canada seems to be very similar to Australia in allot of ways. The Government in this country has an incredible amount of control over the media... or is that vice-versa. In any case they seem to work hand in hand to tell the general public just enough to keep them quiet and docile. One day it will all end because more and more of us are seeing right through this and they are starting to loose their political strong hold. Anyhow enough of that. Seems to be a general consensus that most of us do not trust our 'leaders' and most of us know that they're just puppets hanging from the corporate stings. Maybe Microsoft should take the US government to court and put an Anti-trust law suit on their heads.

 

[bjc112]

<< Just so you know, passwording word files should be easy to break >>



How do you break a word password? i have been meaning to do this on my computer.. i practice on my own files... but if i forget... lights out

 

[n0cmonkey]

<<

<< Just so you know, passwording word files should be easy to break >>



How do you break a word password? i have been meaning to do this on my computer.. i practice on my own files... but if i forget... lights out >>



Do a search on google, there are plenty of applications out there that will do it for you.

 

[CSFM]

Ohh.. might I add, you can only do this for good... don't turn to the dark side once you know how. Knowledge is not power... it is understanding!

 

[CSFM]

Here is a link to a page that may explain a few things to you....

For good not Evil!!!

 

[CSFM]

Here is a better link... Better link

 

[jfunk]

Well, I think the main point is one should use their own private email account for private transactions. Just like if a company gives you a cell phone for your job it isn't very cool to run up huge bills on it talking to your friends.

I think your word trick is prob pretty safe though. I really doubt there is a real person actually going through all these emails, I'm sure it 99% automated, although if they get suspicious and look at why she is receiving all these attachments, they may get mad.

Why not just use a private email and avoid the whole thing? Can she get on the internet from there? If so, just use a free web-based email instead.



j

 

[CSFM]

Unfortunatly she doesn't have access to the internet anymore. I am keeping my Emails to her at a minimum for the time being... just to let things cool down. I am not really bothered by it... I can just call her on the phone if I have something important to tell her.
As for drawing the comparison to using a company mobile phone for private use... I think it is a bit different as Emailing is free.

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< Unfortunatly she doesn't have access to the internet anymore. I am keeping my Emails to her at a minimum for the time being... just to let things cool down. I am not really bothered by it... I can just call her on the phone if I have something important to tell her.
As for drawing the comparison to using a company mobile phone for private use... I think it is a bit different as Emailing is free. >>



No, its not free. One of the big reasons you should only use company email for business purposes is liability reasons. They dont want to be responsible for what you do through thier email servers.

 

[CSFM]

No, its not free. One of the big reasons you should only use company email for business purposes is liability reasons. They don't want to be responsible for what you do through their email servers.

It is a service provided by the company at a cost... sure your right. But weather she uses it 2000 times a day or once a day the cost will always remain the same to the company, that is why I say that Email is free. I don't think I explained that very well in my last post. I fully understand that the company is liable for the content of her Emails to a degree, but the Emails I send her are nothing to be worried about and I am sure no one else sends her Emails with explicit or illegal content. As I said at the start of this thread, they started all this because some one reviled to the employee's what the company had been trying to hide from them for their own benefit (greed).

 

[n0cmonkey]

<< No, its not free. One of the big reasons you should only use company email for business purposes is liability reasons. They don't want to be responsible for what you do through their email servers.

It is a service provided by the company at a cost... sure your right. But weather she uses it 2000 times a day or once a day the cost will always remain the same to the company, that is why I say that Email is free. I don't think I explained that very well in my last post. I fully understand that the company is liable for the content of her Emails to a degree, but the Emails I send her are nothing to be worried about and I am sure no one else sends her Emails with explicit or illegal content. As I said at the start of this thread, they started all this because some one reviled to the employee's what the company had been trying to hide from them for their own benefit (greed). >>



The more emails she sends the more expensive it will be. PLEASE dont think I am accusing you of anything. I am not. But when you make a rule, ie no personal email in your work email account, it needs to be applied to everyone in every situation. You cannot make special rules for certain people.

 

[CSFM]

The thing is they are letting her do private Emailing... they are just reading them ALL before they get sent and before she receives them. I just don't think it is right, weater it is legel or not... I just don't think it is right.

You have to understand that there is about 20 employee's in her office and ALL there Emails are being read. They have the automated respose system to let you know about them being filtered when you send them to her and they think this is enough to get away with a blatent breach of privacy, legal or not... it is WRONG!

I am not flaming you... don't get me wrong. This is a good debate, I like your input. Thanks for spending your time on this!