Around the Net
180-Day-Old Emails Are Up For Grabs
- ShellyPalmer, Monday, June 3, 2013 12:21 PM
The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), which predates the World Wide Web by nearly a decade, allows the government to read some of your old emails, according to Shelly Palmer. Emails older than 180 days are considered "legally abandoned," which gives any governmental agency the right to look at them as long as they provide something stating their relevancy. He tells us that if the emails are stored on a computer rather than a cloud server, the government agency would need a search warrant to access the files -- and describe what's being done about this to increase consumer privacy.
