E-mail communications as confidential as are postcards ??
Michael Geist recently posted an article on a ruling by a Canadian arbitrator regarding Google’s Gmail and Lakehead University Faculty Association’s concerns about the prospect of surveillance by U.S. authorities under laws such as the USA Patriot Act.
The arbitrator concludes: “One should consider e-mail communications as confidential as are postcards.”
You can read his post as well as additional coverage on Wired Campus.
Particularly interesting to me as the concern for email security / level of privacy for Canadians comes up quite often in conversations with customers and partners about hosted solutions…especially if the Data Centers reside outside of Canada. Not sure I would equate email to postcards … but as someone commented, perhaps closer to cell phones.