Clearly this is not a simple issue.
Whilst personal emails are not held by the public authority in FOI terms,
the issue of control does mean it is likely that in most cases the
authority will at least have to look for the information before it can
make that judgement. See Tim's example.
I would not like to defend my authority on complaint to the ICO, on the
basis that I did not disclose material because employee told me it was all
personal. The fact that he/she would be subject to disciplinary is hardly
likely to help.
In this sense having a separate account is a bit of a red herring. It
makes little difference whether the private email is in a seperate account
or in the 'public' account but tagged private.
Therer are two essential differences from the information in someone's
trouser pockets. One of principle - namely control. The other of scale.
The other, even more difficult side of the coin, is that, given the likely
terms of employment, if a public authority employee uses his personal
hotmail account for a work related email (e.g. at the weekend) that email
is 'held' by the authority and is subject to FOIA. These issues should be
covered in your email policy
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