Harvard raided their professors emails to ferret out the source of a leak regarding a cheating scandal. With the changes happening to the Columbia email system and perhaps even with the system in place now, is this something that could happen at our school? That is happening at our school? Would encryption have prevented Harvard from being able to access those emails?

-- ElviraKras - 11 Mar 2013

Elvira,

I thought that article was very interesting!

I feel confident that the type of behavior done at Harvard could also be done at Columbia. I am not certain whether it is.

I think the most interesting point here is the level of dismay caused by a university accessing the university email accounts of professors. If these professors were sat down and asked, I don't think there would be a clear consensus about whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in their harvard email accounts. I know there is not at private employers! In this day and age, I feel that many people live with the expectation that everything that goes through their email account will at some point in time likely be discovered in a lawsuit.

What this does do a great job of highlighting is the massive disconnection between people's expectations for privacy and where their society actually is! There is no way that these professors, who are so taken aback at their university reading their emails, comprehend the extent to which their private lives are picked apart, spread open, and sold freely online.

-- SamuelDostart - 18 Mar 2013