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I don't know about in the US but in the UK it's certainly the case that there's a default expectation of privacy.
by ig1 16y ago
I don't know about in the US but in the UK it's certainly the case that there's a default expectation of privacy.
- Silhouette 16y agoAs much as I'd like to think that's true (being in the UK and a privacy advocate myself) I've never seen anything that would "certainly" describe the legal position in this case, such as a precedent from a case in one of the higher courts. Are you just talking about something like the general privacy right under the ECHR, or something more specific to e-mail? I've found various opinions on-line from UK-based commentators suggesting that if an e-mail isn't explicitly marked or otherwise understood to be confidential, and it didn't contain any sort of privileged information or information that would normally be expected to remain private, then it wouldn't automatically attract protection under any privacy law. Most of these related to an individual republishing messages send on behalf of a corporate body rather than the other way around, though.
- ig1 16y agoThere's nothing email specific, although a company couldn't republish an email from an individual without breaching the data protection act. If the information in an email has no indication (explicit or implicit) that it should remain private, then I agree there's no legal reason why the recipient can't disclose the information from the email