Did any one see this article about the perils of monitoring for Swear
words
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/30/uemail.x
ml
We have recently been told at WCC that ICT are now monitoring for
"swear" words at the email gateway. At WCC we have a policy which
allows limited private use of email as long as it is not offensive or
inappropriate. Offensiveness and inappropriateness is in the eye of the
beholder, words between friends will have differing appropriateness than
words between customers and clients.
The list of words which are block has not been published (probably to
avoid offending staff).
Do people think that a policy which automatically monitors and blocks
private as well as business emails using a list of words considered
inappropriate is a good idea?
I can see all sorts of issues with DP and Monitoring policy and with
Article 8 of Human Rights
An interest side effect of this is that we monitor all email between WCC
and the public but not monitor internal emails, so we are expecting
higher standards of behaviour from the public than our employees.
Chris Tinsley
Wiltshire County Council
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