E-Mail Snooping Breaches Human Rights
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An update to the European Convention on Human Rights, brought about by a Welsh college worker, adds the right to keep your personal e-mail messages and web surfing private, even when at the office.
Lynette Copland, who was PA to the Principal of Carmarthenshire College in 2000, took the British Government, as paymasters of the college, to the European Court of Human Rights after the Deputy Principal of the college started a concerted snooping campaign on her online activity.
It was argued the monitoring was to determine whether Mrs Copland was using the college's facilities for "personal purposes."
But the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the surveillance without her knowledge "amounted to an interference with her right to a private life".
This update formally extends the right to private telecommunications in the workplace to include telecommunications in the internet age.
Since the college had no policy at the time regarding the monitoring of telephone, e-mail or Internet use by employees, the plaintiff "had a reasonable expectation as to the privacy" in her digital communications, the court said.
The ruling means that the private use of company telecoms equipment and internet access may be protected under European human rights legislation, if the company has an acceptable personal-use policy and fails to inform the employee that their communications may be monitored. Employee communications are also covered by human rights legislation if the organisation has no explicit acceptable use policy and fails to inform the employee of the monitoring of personal email.
Research performed by Proofpoint in July 2006 suggested that up to 44% of large UK companies may potentially be breaking the law, with 38% of companies employing a 'corporate snoop' and over 60% performing regular audits of outgoing mail.
The court awarded Mrs Copeland, who still works at the college, £3,000 in damages and £6,000 in legal costs.
In related news, security firm PixAlert has found that more than a quarter (25.8%) of corporate PC's contained pornography or other inappropriate images. Their software performs authorised scans on 10,000 PC's, 125 corporate and public sector networks and 12,000 email accounts. They also found that 12.4% of email accounts and 5.4% of shared servers contained smut, while 0.3% of images detected were classed as illegal.
It was argued the monitoring was to determine whether Mrs Copland was using the college's facilities for "personal purposes."
But the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the surveillance without her knowledge "amounted to an interference with her right to a private life".
This update formally extends the right to private telecommunications in the workplace to include telecommunications in the internet age.
Since the college had no policy at the time regarding the monitoring of telephone, e-mail or Internet use by employees, the plaintiff "had a reasonable expectation as to the privacy" in her digital communications, the court said.
The ruling means that the private use of company telecoms equipment and internet access may be protected under European human rights legislation, if the company has an acceptable personal-use policy and fails to inform the employee that their communications may be monitored. Employee communications are also covered by human rights legislation if the organisation has no explicit acceptable use policy and fails to inform the employee of the monitoring of personal email.
Research performed by Proofpoint in July 2006 suggested that up to 44% of large UK companies may potentially be breaking the law, with 38% of companies employing a 'corporate snoop' and over 60% performing regular audits of outgoing mail.
The court awarded Mrs Copeland, who still works at the college, £3,000 in damages and £6,000 in legal costs.
In related news, security firm PixAlert has found that more than a quarter (25.8%) of corporate PC's contained pornography or other inappropriate images. Their software performs authorised scans on 10,000 PC's, 125 corporate and public sector networks and 12,000 email accounts. They also found that 12.4% of email accounts and 5.4% of shared servers contained smut, while 0.3% of images detected were classed as illegal.
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