Source: Wired News URL:http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,38447,00.html?tw=wn20000826> UK Delays Work Email Legislation Reuters 12:30 p.m. Aug. 25, 2000 PDT The British government confirmed Friday it had briefly delayed attempts to push through controversial new rules about how freely employers can monitor employees' emails. The Department of Trade and Industry said it would give business an extra three weeks to come forward with any reservations about the rules, which would now not come into force until October 24. The original date had been October 2, the day Britain signs up to the European Human Rights Act, which includes stringent rules on privacy. Britain's controversial planned Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act obliges Internet service providers to install boxes allowing officials to monitor email traffic if authorized to do so. The act is still due to come into force on October 2, but now without clauses -- known as the draft lawful business practices regulations -- that spell out the extent to which an employer can monitor the phone calls or emails of its staff. Both the sender and receiver must be informed that their communications are to be monitored, though the regulations make many exemptions to this rule. But a leading business pressure group said the rules, as currently envisaged, were impracticable and could lead to a ban on employees sending personal emails. Copyright © 1999-2000 Reuters Limited. Copyright © 2000 Wired Digital Inc., a Lycos Network site. All rights reserved. ---------------------------------- Send mail for the 'huridocs-tech' list to <huridocs-tech@hrea.org>. Mail administrative requests to <majordomo@hrea.org>. For additional assistance, send mail to: <owner-huridocs-tech@hrea.org>. Archives of previous messages posted to the list can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/lists/huridocs-tech/markup/maillist.html
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