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We were having a conversation at the dinner table and the subject came up about privacy rules and how companies are handling it. A few were IT people. The subject came up when I explained to someone on the table that when they send private e-mail to someone's government e-mail address, that it is public record, regardless of the topic discussed. Everything, including attachments are open for review. The person said, so what? I said, what if it's a photograph of you and someone else in a picture? What if anyone can get access to that public record and prints it for whatever reason. Who is legally responsible?
The consensus was from the IT person, that accessing information from employees accounts, either public or private is not illegal. But the legal responsibility would come if someone prints the information without permission.
Now, I had to pause, because I know that Florida's privacy rule basically state that you can't intentionally tape someone in a private area, but if someone were to come across a private phone conversation, per se, and gave a taping to the press, the press could get in trouble for printing the information without permission. So I applied that knowledge to the e-mail situation. If someone came across information putzying around with his IT job, and does nothing about it, it's not illegal? However, if they are intentionally data mining, what rule, exactly, do they break?
I'm asking because we already know that Google is doing this to some extent, keeping tabs of our searches, but they're not getting in trouble. I'm just wondering what everyone's take is on this? What is unethical and what is downright illegal, and what makes it illegal?
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