Unauthorised access to my emails

[westsidestory]

I have posted this to higher education board as well

I have changed my nickname. I had made a formal complaint to an higher education establishment for mature students about a member staff. The Chair did not want my complaint to go though, posed obstructions delays. Now my complaint will be before a Panel and one Director has prepared his report for this and has send it to me to comment. I discovered and was surprised the Chair had obtained unauthorised access to most of my emails with the staff. I had no idea he did so. I had not given anybody permission to access my emails and did not allow them to show them or use them. The Chair printed out my emails circulated them to other persons and these emails will be shown to the members of the Panel who will do their final verdict on my complaint.

My emails contain sensitive private information. The chair have tried to intimidate me 3 months ago into handing him over every email of mine but without success. no part of any regulations allows this. He did abuse the information in my emails. He copy pasted my phrases inside his report mocking at my profession and my lifestyle. I am not angry but feel deep pity for his state of mind. I am disabled and have dyslexia . The Chair did obviously violate the DPA. My son who is a student says he cannot believe this and he has never heard of such a ludicrous thing at any university. I plan to make a formal complaint and ask the Chair to remove my emails from their documents and not use them. Since he is a top boss I cannot complain any higher except to contact my MP. I will also contact the ICO tomorrow.

I appreciate advice.
Add message | Report | Message poster

Do you work there? It's a bit unclear from your post, sorry.

At my work, all work emails can be accessed, and I think this is pretty standard. It's in our contract and also in our internal policies that emails can be accessed, although I've only know it happen once, when someone was freelancing and using his work email as a contact.

Agent no I do not work there, I was a student.

Was it your university email address or a private email address?

I think if it was your university email address they probably have the right to access them, in the same way that a company has a right to access employee emails if they wished - it's being sent in their name and you're accessing their systems to send the email

I know in work that HR have accessed emails in people's inboxes before, in investigations, even if they've deleted them the details were held on the companies servers

sooperdooper these were emails sent from my private address to staff at the uni and temails sent from the uni to my private address.

Do you mean that they have hacked/logged into your account, or just printed off and shared emails they had access to by virtue of being the recipient/sender?

They accessed my emails that were in their own inbox and those which were ‘sent' from them to me the.

Those are not "your" emails. If you send me a letter, the letter is my property. I can show it to whoever I want to.

If you sent the emails to other people, those other people can choose to show them to whoever they like once they are in their inboxes

If the emails were sent to university email addresses it highly likely that the university is able to access those emails under its email policy. Most workplaces have such policies in place.

1. If they are emails you have sent to other people and those other people have given copies of these to someone then that is their prerogative - it would be a courtesy to ask if they could share them (particularly if you wrote private and confidential anywhere on it) but ultimately once you have sent the letter it becomes the property of the receiver.

1. Universities/ work places generally have as part of their user agreements that your emails and email account belong to them and they can access them and monitor them at any time. It would be unusual for them to do so - but they will do if they have good reason to do so. I expect a complaint against them regarding staff would be seen as a good reason. Herein lies a lesson, only use your private email e.g. hotmail/ gmail for private correspondence.

1. You have no case under the data protection act. See points 1 and 2. The data protection act is just that... data protection (e.g. not leaving things lying around on a train, or selling private info) again, the university will OWN all your emails sent using their accounts. Therefore firstly it is their data, and secondly, they are using it for a specific purpose and presumably not distributing it unnecessarily.

You have my sympathy, but let this be a learning curve.

There has been no unauthorised access to your emails. Staff who have sent emails to or received them from you have, entirely legitimately, handed them over to aid an internal investigation. No breach of DPA. It sounds like you might have become a bit too emotionally involved in your complaint.

Sorry OP but if the emails are in someone else's inbox, then they're their property.

Also, I would imagine that your Uni, like mine, state in their policy that the email service is theirs, and you are allowed to use it. Therefore, your uni email account is their property.

However, if you are being penalised because of your disability or learning difficulty then this is an issue you need to pursue.

Thank you all, very useful to know
I did not send the emails from a uni account. I sent emails from my private one like gmail. The staff sent me from from their account at the uni to my private account. So whatever comes from a private box to a university box it is their property and whatever is sent from them to my private box is also theirs. The lesson is not to use email much.

I understand that a uni may have access to emails sent from a private address to a staff there but they have to use those in a responsible manner.

any email that you send to a staff member can and will be shared around.

I work for the local government, I was told by my union that when using emails as evidence; I could produce emails that I had written and sent myself but I couldn't use emails that had been sent to me in reply by another person.

Vitalia, that is not good advice from your union. Contact your authority's data protection officer and they will confirm that is not the case.

Thanks Solomon. I understand now why the accessed list of emails is incomplete. Some are missing and these had been sent to me in reply by another person.

OP, not a legal point, and obviously hard to say anything useful without knowing the specifics of your situation (which sound very stressful), but I regularly sit on complaints and appeals boards in my university, and in those cases we always see all relevant email communication between the student and the department. This is so that we have all the necessary information to make a fair judgement on the student's complaint. Unless you been abusive or obviously untruthful in your emails, which I'm sure you haven't, they will work in your favour because they'll allow the board to get the full picture, rather than the partial one that the head of department may have been feeding everyone.

FatherReboolaConundrum Thanks for your advice. After reading your advice I feel in the end it is very good for my case that my emails will be read.

Good you raised 'we always see all relevant email communication’. The emails of mine selected by the Chair to be be included, have my private information but I feel they are not relevant - they cannot be used as evidence. But The five most relevant emails that were sent to me by staff have been omitted by the Chair. They are evidence that works against him.

Sounds like you're in a really difficult and unfair situation. Can you get some assistance? Good luck

Bleuuuuurgh Many thanks. I had asked the Institute and the Student Support for help in emails but I had none so far. So I write everything myself taking care to always to refer to the relevant sections of the Guides and regulations. At present a small part of my complaint was upheld due to compelling evidence.

Many thanks to all of you. I made enquiries about data sharing in my case . Although Institutions do have rights of access to their systems and emails there are statutory checklists to be made by them in advance - the other side must be also be made aware and be told how they are to used and how long to keep them. The way any institution shares data is governed by Law. I am not legal person and the field is quite complex seems.... I downloaded the booklet of data sharing after ICO told me.

I also understood another thing: if you agree to the other side to go ahead and download your emails you do sign a blank check, and if you are not familiar with Laws you do not know the risks you take.

If you're not happy with the outcome of the complaint (once you get to that stage) you might want to look into whether you can complain to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education.

www.oiahe.org.uk/

OP, you're probably being told this on the HE board too, but please make sure that you are getting support form your student union. You mention Student Support, but I assume that's part of university administration, as it is at my institution. They can only do so much for you in these kinds of situations. Your student union welfare section will be able to provide you with advice and support, and I assume that, as where I am, you can bring a student union welfare person to all hearings. Remember, too, that if you want any documents to be seen by the board that the department haven't submitted (e.g. whole copies of emails chains if the chair has submitted small sections that seem to work in their favour), then you need to submit them as supporting evidence in your complaint. The board won't be able to read documents they don't know about, so you need to bring them to their attention. Again, your SU should be able to give you more detailed advice.

FatherReboolaConundrum
Thanks very helpful. I will submit those emails that the department has omitted. There is no student union at the Institution. The Institute has only P_T students. There is an officer with multiple roles one of which is the interpretation of Student Regulations. I asked where can I raise my concerns in writing and where to find the policy of data processing. she says the problem that arises is: The sole Person in the entire Institute designated to receive my written enquiry/complaint is the same Chair who obtained access to and shared my emails without my consent and knowledge. That will not work fair for me. So she will send me the policy and will see where can I raise my concerns.