Company Email Policy -- Background

Consider the following aspects of electronic messages when you are formulating your policies:

• Email and files may be protected by passwords, encryption and similar means.
• Electronic messages and files tend to be more persistent than oral communications. Copies Proliferate.
• It may or may not be easy to tell who sent a particular message. Alteration of particular messages is feasible. But use of a company email system may also create detailed electronic records that disclose more information than was previously available concerning an employee's activities.
• An email address may belong to a group.
• Email is cheap and easy -- use of it for incidental personal purposes isn't likely to strain company resources.
• Because of the absence of the restraint provided by face to face confrontations, electronic messages can convey intense emotions. On the other hand, asynchronous messaging allows reflection and research before a message is sent.
• It may be easy or hard to give an employee an ability to "retract" an email message once it is sent.
• Use of company email systems from remote locations may create records of company activities that are not stored on equipment owned by the company.
• Computer viruses can spread through electronic messaging systems.
• The use of IDs and passwords creates an expectation of privacy.
• System administration personnel with high security clearances generally need, and generally have, access to private electronic communications. This may not be true if encryption is in use -- but non-escrowed encryption can pose issues concerning the ability of the company to get access to a company record in the absense of the employee who knows the key.
• Most email and other electronic communications systems now link to other systems outside the company. Some companies provide access to and use of their email systems to customers and suppliers who are not employees of the company. This may pose special security risks or trigger special duties under laws governing those who provide electronic communications services to the public.
• Email systems may be used to infringe copyright, perpetrate fraud, distribute defamatory statements, and otherwise inflict harm on third parties. Because of the scope of this new medium, the harm caused by a wrongful message may occur more rapidly, or be greater in scope, than that caused by paper documents.
• It is generally easy to search large sets of electronic messages with automated search engines.