E-mail And Phone Snooping In The UK

bscanl writes: "According to this Irish Times story, British companies are to be allowed intercept their employees' e-mail and telephone calls. Nasty stuff."

Comments

Both Illegal and Legal here in the States

[scotpurl]

The strange thing is that someone really needs to sue their employer (any takers out there?) and get this resolved here in the States. There are situations where it's OK for the employer to snoop on phone calls, and others where it's not. One of the exceptions I remember (me not Lawyer) is Montana and Delaware, both having state constitutions highly protective of individual rights, say that it's not OK for employers to snoop. Other states are like, "Sure, if it increases your profits, do whatever you like...."

Anyway, at some point, they'll label email and telephone as similar communications, and thus bound by similar rules. Which means they'll either give telephone conversations the same weak protections email has, or they'll do what Thomas Jefferson would do, and extend the same protections to email that telephone users enjoy.

And maybe grandfather us DSL and cable modem users in, too. :-)

Re:Both Illegal and Legal here in the States

[blameless]

someone really needs to sue their employer (any takers out there?) and get this resolved

That's really sad, isn't it? It would be nice if the legislators would do their jobs & protect the rights of individual Americans, wouldn't it?

Last night, during the debate, Bush said he believes "that the judges ought not to take the place of the legislative branch of government."

I feel they ought not to have to take the place of the legislators. Unfortunately, it appears that we, the people, have no choice but to take matters into our own hands & litigate.

As it stands, the legislative branch of our country operates under a system of open bribery.

Um...

[Jetifi]

Two days ago there was a fuss about the European Convention on Human Rights (or something) becoming law. This was billed as "The greatest change to English law for 300 years", and one of the things it stops is employee surveillance.

So preseumably this law is out of date already.

Already quite legal.

[_LORAX_]

In the US or most anywhere, it is perfectly legal to snoop on your employees. They are using company propery, and on company time, why not. The biggest problem that I see with the current system, is that is does not go nearly far enough to warn employees exactly what and when they will be monitored.

I would like to see companies bound by a policy that they have to state, and have employees sign every 6 months. This policy would describe what channels are monitored, when, and who to appeal to. Snooping should also only cover outbound calls, or inbound only under suspision, as employees have less control over who calls them.

Personally I don't believe monitoring in most situations is good buisness practice, as it shows that your managers can't do there job of keeping tabs on productive / non-productive employees without employing technology seems a little strange to me, but anyways.

Re:Already quite legal.

[radja]

in europe there is such a thing as 'reasonable expectation of privacy', and all breaches of privacy (like snooping email) have to be known in advance. Just because the infrastructure belongs to the company doesn't give them full rights to snoop everything. And it shouldn't.. or do you think companies should also be allowed to hang cameras in their toilets? After all.. it's their property... it is reasonable to expect that you won't be taped in a compromising position on the toilet.

//rdj

//rdj

What about encrypted data?

[blameless]

Does this legislation allow companies to ban the use of encryption on company emails?

For many businesses, encryption is necessary to protect sensitive information, so instituting such a restriction would be, to say the least, counterproductive. Even so, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to hear of such a development, particularly in corporate bureaucracies.

Letter from Patricia Hewitt to Financial Times

[PhilHibbs]

Found this ;he re:
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Interception and the rights of individuals
Financial Times, Aug 8, 2000, 174 words

>From Patricia Hewitt MP.

Sir, Your article "Companies snooping on staff face curbs" (August 3)
suggests that the draft lawful business practice regulations, currently the
subject of a public consultation, will entail a "legal clampdown" on
companies' monitoring of electronic communications by "bringing private
business under the scope of interception laws for the first time".

This is not accurate. The regulations will actually reduce the burden on
business by making exceptions to the general rules on interception set out
in the regulation of investigatory powers act. They will permit businesses
to intercept communications on their own systems without consent for certain
purposes such as providing evidence of a commercial transaction, preventing
crime, or protecting a network against viruses or hackers. The regulations
will therefore help legitimate business practices regarding interception
while at the same time providing a high degree of protection to individuals'
civil rights.

The regulations have been drafted in the light of informal discussions with
business and other interests. We have already taken on board some of their
suggestions and I will take careful account of any further ones.

Patricia Hewitt, Minister for e-commerce, Dept of Trade and Industry, 1
Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET