Ethics and the Privacy of Electronic Mail

Coordinated Science Laboratory was formerly known as Control Systems LaboratoryThis report was deliberately created without a report documentation page (i.e., it is not missing from this scan)

Against Employer Dumpster-Diving for Email

Recent attorney client-privilege cases ojfer a modern understanding of reasonable expectations of employee privacy in the digital age. Today employees are sending an increasing number of electronic mail communications to their attorneys via employer-provided computers or other digital devices with an expectation of privacy and confidentiality. Historically, courts summarily dispensed with these matters by finding that an employer policy establishing employer ownership of any communications made through employer-provided devices eliminated any employee expectation of privacy in the communications and waived any viable privacy challenges to employer review of those communications. Nevertheless, within the last couple of years, several cases involving employee assertions of attorney-client-privilege protection in emails sent on employer-provided devices suggest new thoughts about reasonable workplace privacy expectations. As employees must communicate through employer-provided digital devices, day and night, these attorney-client-privilege cases help expose the fallacy of assuming employees cannot reasonably expect that emails will remain private if employers\u27policies mandate that such communications are not private. These new cases and related ethics opinions about privileged email offer a modern lens through which one may now view employee privacy expectations under a new paradigm that replaces the facade of assuming employees have no expectation of privacy due to employer policies. Digital-age expectations regarding employee use of smart cellular phones, portable laptops, and other employer-provided electronic devices to communicate beyond standard work hours leaves little expectation or reasonable opportunity for employees to communicate privately and confidentially by any other means. as a result, this article asserts that employer efforts to mine employer-provided devices for employee emails, after disputes arise, comprises a form of electronic dumpster-diving that should not be tolerated by courts, legislatures, or attorney ethics committees

Against Employer Dumpster-Diving for Email

Recent attorney client-privilege cases ojfer a modern understanding of reasonable expectations of employee privacy in the digital age. Today employees are sending an increasing number of electronic mail communications to their attorneys via employer-provided computers or other digital devices with an expectation of privacy and confidentiality. Historically, courts summarily dispensed with these matters by finding that an employer policy establishing employer ownership of any communications made through employer-provided devices eliminated any employee expectation of privacy in the communications and waived any viable privacy challenges to employer review of those communications. Nevertheless, within the last couple of years, several cases involving employee assertions of attorney-client-privilege protection in emails sent on employer-provided devices suggest new thoughts about reasonable workplace privacy expectations. As employees must communicate through employer-provided digital devices, day and night, these attorney-client-privilege cases help expose the fallacy of assuming employees cannot reasonably expect that emails will remain private if employers\u27policies mandate that such communications are not private. These new cases and related ethics opinions about privileged email offer a modern lens through which one may now view employee privacy expectations under a new paradigm that replaces the facade of assuming employees have no expectation of privacy due to employer policies. Digital-age expectations regarding employee use of smart cellular phones, portable laptops, and other employer-provided electronic devices to communicate beyond standard work hours leaves little expectation or reasonable opportunity for employees to communicate privately and confidentially by any other means. as a result, this article asserts that employer efforts to mine employer-provided devices for employee emails, after disputes arise, comprises a form of electronic dumpster-diving that should not be tolerated by courts, legislatures, or attorney ethics committees

The Right to Privacy, the New Media and Human Development in Nigeria

This paper examines the right to privacy, the new media and national development efforts in Nigeria. It draws attention to the need to be ethical in using the new media of communication which have practically made the world a “global village” as previously predicted by media iconoclast and scholar, Marshal McLuhan. The social responsibility theory of the press provides theoretical anchor for the paper. This paper which depends on secondary data, identifies some new media to include the electronic mail (e-mail), Internet, GSM, videoconferencing and others. Depending on the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) and the Code of Ethics for Nigerian Journalists (1998), the author makes a robust case for the protection of the privacy of the individual to enable him/her contribute meaningfully to national development efforts. Some cases on the invasion of peoples privacy have been highlighted especially the Sir Keith Rupert Murdoch incident in England, the Anita Hagan Bassey and Oge Okoye cases in Nigeria. It has also been noted that certain factors tend to limit the use of he new media in Nigeria, such as poor power situation, high costs, lack of adequate knowledge and skill as many persons, including journalists, do not make themselves available for instruction and training. In order to improve the use of the new media in a professional and responsible manner, it is recommended among others, that computer education should be given institutional and government attention, media houses should show more interest than they are doing at the moment in handling issues related to ICT while ethical orientation should be given more attention than it is receiving at the moment by all concerned

Ethics @ email: Do new media require new ethics?

As more and more day-to-day interaction in business and academia has begun to take place through electronic mail, probably every one of its users has experienced some breakdown. By now, we have come to expect occasional hardware failures, but the human ones still catch us by surprise. That message we dashed off with no ill intent is received with hard feelings. Or it is forwarded to someone we never meant should see it. Or, unbeknown to us, it is read by our boss. E-mail has raised a host of ethical questions about how we treat one another and how we work, but its very newness as a medium can make the answers more obscure

Marketing, Consumers and Technology: Perspectives for Enhancing Ethical Transactions

The advance of technology has influenced marketing in a number of ways that have ethical implications. Growth in use of the Internet and e-commerce has placed electronic cookies, spyware, spam, RFIDs, and data mining at the forefront of the ethical debate. Some marketers have minimized the significance of these trends. This overview paper examines these issues and introduces the two articles that follow. It is hoped that these entries will further the important marketing and technology ethical debate

Exposed Online: Why the New Federal Health Privacy Regulation Doesn't Offer Much Protection to Internet Users

Provides an analysis of how the HIPAA regulation may or may not cover consumer-oriented health Web sites and Internet based health care. Comments on what new standards will be required for those sites covered by the regulation

'E' for exposed? Email and privacy issues

In March 1996, American Libraries featured a piece about a librarian at the University of California/Irvine whose supervisor intercepted her e-mail while she was absent on medical leave. As a result of this, UC's Office for Academic Computing began a review of e-mail privacy on the nine-campus system. This article and UC's reaction prompted my research into this topic

Privacy in (mobile) telecommunications services

Telecommunications services are for long subject to privacy regulations. At stake are traditionally: privacy of the communication and the protection of traffic data. Privacy of the communication is legally founded. Traffic data subsume under the notion of data protection and are central in the discussion. The telecommunications environment is profoundly changing. The traditionally closed markets with closed networks change into an open market with open networks. Within these open networks more privacy sensitive data are generated and have to be exchanged between growing numbers of parties. Also telecommunications and computer networks are rapidly being integrated and thus the distinction between telephony and computing disappears. Traditional telecommunications privacy regulations are revised to cover internet applications. In this paper telecommunications issues are recalled to aid the on-going debate. Cellular mobile phones have recently be introduced. Cellular networks process a particular category of traffic data namely location data, thereby introducing the issue of territorial privacy into the telecommunications domain. Location data are bound to be used for pervasive future services. Designs for future services are discussed and evaluated for their impact on privacy protection.</p

Cancer-related electronic support groups as navigation-aids: Overcoming geographic barriers

Cancer-related electronic support groups (ESGs) may be regarded as a complement to face-to-face groups when the latter are available, and as an alternative when they are not. Advantages over face-to-face groups include an absence of barriers imposed by geographic location, opportunities for anonymity that permit sensitive issues to be discussed, and opportunities to find peers online. ESGs can be especially valuable as navigation aids for those trying to find a way through the healthcare system and as a guide to the cancer journey. Outcome indicators that could be used to evaluate the quality of ESGs as navigation aids need to be developed and tested. Conceptual models for the navigator role, such as the Facilitating Navigator Model, are appropriate for ESGs designed specifically for research purposes. A Shared or Tacit Model may be more appropriate for unmoderated ESGs. Both conceptual models raise issues in Internet research ethics that need to be addres