STAFF/EDITORIAL: Electronic privacy at Penn

University Council must balance individual rights and Penn's needs in formulating a policy on e-mail privacy. University Council is considering limitations on this policy and that is the first step in the right direction. Fundamentally, we believe that people have a right to be secure in their personal communications. But this right is not absolute. When Penn officials have probable cause to believe students have committed a prosecutable crime or a violation of University policy, they should seek access to electronic records held by Penn. This standard -- probable cause, or reasonable grounds to believe that an accused person is guilty as charged -- is the same as that to which law enforcement officials are held. Any attempt to read a student's private messages in the absence of a specific accusation of wrongdoing is an unwarranted invasion of that student's privacy. Furthermore, the power to search a student's e-mail account should be held by that student's dean, and the dean alone. Currently, the Office of Student Conduct also has the authority to initiate a search, but the OSC's prosecutorial function makes us wary of allowing it unlimited access to student e-mail records. Entrusting the deans -- impartial observers to disciplinary proceedings, like a magistrate issuing a search warrant -- with responsibility for granting access is the most reasonable idea. No policy will be sufficient, however, unless it is widely publicized. Students today operate from a false sense of security that their non-encrypted electronic communications are private. Students should be made aware of e-mail privacy rules -- as well as ways they can protect themselves from unscrupulous cyber-snoopers -- when they receive their accounts and over the course of their undergraduate years. The issue of how and when the University should monitor e-mail usage by faculty and staff is much thornier. Courts have thus far upheld the rights of corporations to search employee e-mail without any restrictions. Employees have a very different legal relationship with the University than do students -- one that requires greater security precautions -- and should harbor fewer illusions about the privacy of their electronic communications. We encourage University Council to move swiftly toward completion of a new policy on electronic privacy, and for all University affiliates to take heed of the new rules of the digital age.