This week I met with the ITS staff of Davidson College. The ITS staff was very informative about Davidson's privacy policy regarding email and internet use. I found out that Davidson has does provide a great deal of privacy to students' emails, however they do have the legal right to access student emails. In the last ten years, I was told that ITS has not had to access any student emails for any reasons except for the exception of being subpoenaed or as a result of an honor council verdict. It seems to tie in with the honor code here at Davidson that students are held to a higher standard and trusted. This results in Davidson's policy of reserving the right to access student emails, yet on the other working to protect their privacy. This leaves me in an interesting position regarding my thesis because it seems that Davidson does not have a need for any email monitoring. If anyone has any ideas for how to refocus my topic that would be greatly appreciated.
Ideas for refocusing topic
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I think Davidson may be the exception rather than the norm with regards to email monitoring. I don't know of any other schools that have an honor code like Davidson's. You may try to look into another school and their email privacy policy. I know UNC Charlotte is close by, so you could possibly interview someone from their ITS services.
Scott,
You might consider the conditions under which the College could access a student’s mail (as opposed to just when they have accessed student email). For example, which of the conditions outlined in the ITS policy apply to students as opposed to others? (http://www3.davidson.edu/cms/x1194.xml). So, for instance, what's a “legal request” according to the ITS policy. The phone companies gave up all their data post-9/11 in what is considered a legal request from the government (though if I recall there was some debate over that). Would the College comply under similar circumstances.
One question I find intriguing is whether or not College email is monitored, or monitorable, by outside agencies such as the FBI. Wasn’t there a fight over whether colleges had to set up their email systems so they could be monitored by such agencies? Have colleges responded differently than phone companies to such requests?
Paul