Re: i need some good advice, my boss is reading my emails

From: Walter Roberson (roberson_at_ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca)
Date: 03/06/05

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    Date: 6 Mar 2005 17:58:41 GMT

    In article <PUwWd.155178$0u.6123@fed1read04>,
    Michael J. Pelletier <mjpelletier@mjpelletier.com> wrote:

    :I work in network security. Technically, and legally, any company resource
    :is own by the company. They can LEGALLY tap your phone read you email
    :(company's system). They also can monitor you while you are using company
    :resources (computers phone, etc). I am not saying that I agree with it but,
    :it is legal.

    Never post information like that without qualifying it with
    jurisdiction!!!

    Here in Canada, "tapping" a phone is illegal for anyone other
    than law enforcement officials with an official warrant.
    But "tapping" is the recording of (or listening to) calls without
    the person's knowledge.

    Industry here can record or listen to calls on business lines *with*
    the person's knowledge, to the extent that doing so is required for
    work-related reasons. If the employees are not told about the
    monitoring in advance, or if the fact of the monitoring is not repeated
    sufficiently office to inculculate that it is ongoing, then the
    recording/monitoring of the calls becomes illegal. Furthermore, if
    there is a phone that is available for employee use which is not in the
    work area (e.g., a payphone in the break room), then the phone may not
    be monitored no matter who owns it, unless there are compelling
    security reasons to do so [e.g., military related work where high
    security is very important.]

    Government here is even more restricted: before monitoring, they
    must establish that there is a real need for monitoring (industry
    is freer to monitor on property rights grounds). This is a right
    under what is casually known as our Constitution; more accurately,
    it is "The Canada Charter of Rights and Freedoms".

    The legal rules in Canada are less clear when it comes to email. The
    policy of the Canadian Federal Government is to treat email as very
    close to phone conversations for legal purposes. There is no court
    decision that specifically requires this, but the legal council to the
    Government has advised them that there is a substantial chance that the
    Government would lose a challenge if it were otherwise. Thus if my
    supervisor [here in Government] (or anyone else) were to approach me
    and say that they needed to read someone's email, then I am required to
    refuse access unless a bona fide reason can be established; if the
    reason is "they aren't here today", then reasons why the matter cannot
    wait until they return must be presented. Our management does NOT have
    privileged access to any of our email systems. The situation of the OP
    on this matter would not be permitted in the Canadian Federal
    Government -- not unless there was a good reason why monitoring
    email content was important and that policy was clearly expressed
    to all employees.

    As someone, I think it was on this thread, indicated, not all places
    have the same primacy of property rights that private US employers have.
    Employement in Canada is not a kind of slavery (insert appropriate
    qualifiers about solders and about high-security work.) 

    -- 
   'The short version of what Walter said is "You have asked a question
   which has no useful answer, please reconsider the nature of the
   problem you wish to solve".'              -- Tony Mantler
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