Is Your Email Address Public Data?

quackking writes "Are email addresses public records, accessible under public open-access laws in America? Up in Maine they are fighting about just this issue ..."

Comments

Open gov't

[MacAndrew]

The default rule should be that public data is open to the public, Mr. Cheney notwithstanding. There are exception such as statutorily-granted privacy, (gov't) doctor-patient privilege, national security, executive privilege (narrow!), and so on. In general, though, we should expect such records to be open when we go looking for them and when we turn over data to them. I don't see a reasonable expectation of privacy UNLESS the gov't assured me of one; and I wouldn't give them an email address of any value to me without assurances. If the gov't gave such assurances falsely, they should at least purge the data they have, or be liable for damages.

I do think such records should probably be protected, but by law. There were some nasty problems, for example, when states such as California were not just releasing driver's license data, but selling it for profit. In CA, and at least one other place, this led to stalking/murder, such as by someone who knew only a license plate.

But generally, we should expect gov't to be open by default -- we pay for the system, we gets the fruits -- as always, IMHO....

Re:Open gov't

[nlvp]

I agree, this is just an example of new territory. Nobody's ever asked for this before, and so they're thinking, "is this appropriate?" If it isn't, then they need to legislate, but just because this Sharkey fellow is the first person to come up with the request doesn't mean he should be exempt from the laws that are passed in reaction to his request.

Legislators don't generalise laws if they deem it to be inappropriate, they need to acknowledge (or not) that email is different to regular mail addresses on the basis that the cost-free nature of emailing an address means that should that address become public knowledge, the address itself may become unusable quite quickly.

Hopefully, common sense will prevail and legislators will decide that people that provided their email addresses had a reasonable presumption of privacy, or that if you want to contact them through this method, then you have to go through an authorized third party that will forward certain types of communication (ie not be a spam-forwarder); perhaps neither of these options is the right one, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that just implementing open access policies and letting anyone get access to these email addresses is inappropriate.

Since the article says that the email addresses are used to communicate council business to residents, we can say that the address owners had a reasonable presumption that that was what the address was going to be used for, not for whatever Mr. Sharkey's unstated purposes are.