February 16, 1995
A lawyer for the California State University system cautioned computer users not to treat electronic mail as confidential correspondence, since it could be monitored and subject to public record requests.
In a memorandum dated Jan. 24 to chancellor office employees, Christine Helwick, interim general counsel for CSU, said "E-mail lies somewhere between written and telephone communications, and quite frankly, the law has not yet caught up with the technological advances."
Electronic mail used by school employees can be monitored by supervisors in limited circumstances and can be disclosed under the California Public Records Act, Helwick said in the memorandum.
Personnel files and cases that are currently in litigation are exempt, CSU Spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler said. Helwick's office referred all questions regarding the memorandum to Bentley-Adler.
An example of when an employer might look at a specific electronic mail account is when "there is reason to believe an employee has engaged in wrongdoing," Helwick said in the memorandum.
Because monitoring may violate privacy rights, Chair of Statewide Academic Senate Harold Goldwhite said the Faculty Affairs Committee has assembled a group to look at privacy issues surrounding electronic mail and when an employer is justified to examine a user's electronic mail messages.
The committee is currently deciding on a uniform electronic mail policy for the CSU system. "A lot of faculty are concerned that it gives too much power to employers," Goldwhite said.
The memorandum was written in response to concern about electronic mail's status as a public record, Goldwhite said. Helwick was asked to check the law and report back to them, he said.
"She is not making policy," Goldwhite said.
Goldwhite said he had not heard of an incident where a supervisor in the CSU system looked at an employee's electronic mail.
Rick Gutierrez, SF State California Faculty Association president, said he was unaware of the memorandum.
"I would be interested to hear what the (Statewide Academic) Senate has to say before moving on it," Gutierrez said.
If the Faculty Affairs Committee implements a policy allowing supervisors to look at employee's electronic mail, Gutierrez said the California Faculty Association's Executive Committee would be concerned with academic freedom and rights of privacy violations. "It does disturb me that the administration has to monitor e-mail," Gutierrez said. "That to me is the same as monitoring phone calls."
At SF State about 1,000 faculty members and 7,000 students have e-mail accounts, according to Computing Services.
Jim Chan, information systems coordinator at SF State, said the campus system administrator has access to user's electronic mail accounts, but not their passwords.
"Once you start dealing with passwords, it's between the user and the computer," Chan said. "There is no intermediary. People who manage the system cannot run a program to retrieve a password because it's encrypted."
Even though the password is secret, it is not completely secure.
"Electronic mail is simply another form of communication," Chan said. "If someone wants to tap into your phone, they can."
Chan also said deleted messages can be recovered from back-up tapes. Back-up tapes are usually used when a computer system crashes, according to Chan.
"Some instructors have lost their mail," Chan said. "But (Computing Services) was able to retrieve their mail from back-up tapes and some students also (lost their mail)."
A user can get deleted electronic mail by filling out "Form A" in the old Administration Building, room 110.