FC: More on UK firms can't police personal email during office hours

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Previous Politech message:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-03356.html

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Date: Tue, 09 Apr 2002 01:12:10 +0000
From: Jeremy Barker <jeremy.barker () btinternet com>
To: declan () well com
CC: CBeck () coradiant com
Subject: Re: FC: UK firms can't police personal email at work during 
officehours

There's a fundamental difference between what employers want to do (look at 
the contents of e-mail their employees are sending and receiving)
and what the government wants to do (record nothing more than the to and 
from addresses of e-mail and the time it was sent or received).

Unfortunately a lot of people, perhaps deliberately, have misunderstood the 
government's monitoring proposals which talk about "traffic data".
"Traffic data" is legally defined as data showing the origin and 
destination of e-mail but people have been reading it as if it meant "data
within traffic" - which is legally termed "content" and can only be 
monitored with special authorisation.

Regards,

Jeremy Barker (employment lawyer)

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From: CBeck () coradiant com
To: Jeremy Barker <jeremy.barker () btinternet com>
Cc: declan () well com, CBeck () coradiant com
Subject: Re: FC: UK firms can't police personal email at work during 
officehours
Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 21:06:42 -0400

Point taken, to be sure, but I am aware of the difference between 
end-points and content.  I was merely pointing out the irony of the UK 
government chastising companies for behaviour that they would love to do 
themselves.  (Behaviour that if they don't already do, they are certainly 
trying very hard to make it transparently easy to do)

BTW, I'm aware that Canada has a less than sterling record when it comes to 
privacy ... our friends the RCMP are showing that quite handily in Kelowna 
as was mentioned on Politech the other day.
<http://www.politechbot.com/p-03279.html>http://www.politechbot.com/p-03279.html






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