Re: Gmail for students and IMAP

["McClenon, Braden" <mcclenbw () ONEONTA EDU>]

I agree on the statement as far as intent, and I'm not saying anyone is
purposely making a policy that may appear to have a lot of latitude.
I'm just saying that if I were one of your users, I could interpret it
that way.

We all look over Google's policies with a fine tooth comb and say,
"Hmmm... I wonder what they mean by '"Google maintains and processes
your Gmail account and its contents to provide the Gmail service to you
and to improve our services".  Well, one could read "will not read email
unless necessary in the course of their duties" and ask, well what
exactly are their duties?  When does reading my email fall in the course
of their duties?

Simply put, I think if we read the same thing in a Google EULA, we'd
asked what exactly is meant and scrutinize it.  When it's our own, we
say "No that's not what we meant, you know that. Come on, it's us, you
know you can trust us."

Brady McClenon
Senior Server Administrator
SUNY Oneonta
607-436-3203



> -----Original Message-----
> From: The EDUCAUSE Security Constituent Group Listserv
> [mailto:SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU] On Behalf Of Willis Marti
> Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 9:06 AM
> To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] Gmail for students and IMAP
>
> McClenon, Braden wrote:
> > "should be kept as private as possible" and "will not read email
> unless necessary in the course of their duties" don't give me much
> reassurance of privacy.  Seems like that wording gives a lot of
> latitude...
> I disagree. Our rules say much the same. As a state entity, several
> laws
> impact our ability to provide privacy. I can't think of a state where
a
> public institution of higher education could promise absolute privacy.
> We also have rules against sysadmins abusing their capabilities. It's
> worked pretty well over the years. Anecdotally, that serves more to
> protect the sysadmin from improper requests from administrators.
>
> Cheers,
>  Willlis F. Marti
>  Director & CISO
>  Networking and Information Security
>  Texas A&M University