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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/29/should-we-all-give-up-on-email-in-the-name-of-privacy
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| After Nova Peris and Barry Spurr, should we all give up on email in the name of privacy? | |
| (31 minutes later) | |
| Once you read the emails exchanged between Northern Territory senator and former Olympian Nova Peris and Olympic medallist Ato Boldon, you cannot unread them. Same goes for Sydney university professor Barry Spurr, for whom the use of racist language in emails to colleagues ended in his suspension. | Once you read the emails exchanged between Northern Territory senator and former Olympian Nova Peris and Olympic medallist Ato Boldon, you cannot unread them. Same goes for Sydney university professor Barry Spurr, for whom the use of racist language in emails to colleagues ended in his suspension. |
| Whatever you think of their contents, there is a creepy feeling reading them – of prying into something private, not meant to be seen by you. | Whatever you think of their contents, there is a creepy feeling reading them – of prying into something private, not meant to be seen by you. |
| Part of the fascination is that in the leaked emails with their rushed and sloppy declarations of feeling “Ato … tell me babe … what u want … Make a bit of money and spend time together … I will take time of [sic] from work to be with u” or their undisguised, raw bitchiness (Spurr called the University of Sydney chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, an “appalling minx”), we are seeing a real or somehow more authentic version of this public person. And in this authenticity the person becomes diminished. By their own words they have been exposed as racist, or cruel, or grasping. | Part of the fascination is that in the leaked emails with their rushed and sloppy declarations of feeling “Ato … tell me babe … what u want … Make a bit of money and spend time together … I will take time of [sic] from work to be with u” or their undisguised, raw bitchiness (Spurr called the University of Sydney chancellor, Belinda Hutchinson, an “appalling minx”), we are seeing a real or somehow more authentic version of this public person. And in this authenticity the person becomes diminished. By their own words they have been exposed as racist, or cruel, or grasping. |
| But who has clean hands when it comes to email? Or Gchat? or Facebook messages? What if these leaks are only the start of it? What if they spark a trend of email leakage? After all, it only takes a “friend” to forward a particularly juicy email into the wrong hands for us to be “Spurred”. | But who has clean hands when it comes to email? Or Gchat? or Facebook messages? What if these leaks are only the start of it? What if they spark a trend of email leakage? After all, it only takes a “friend” to forward a particularly juicy email into the wrong hands for us to be “Spurred”. |
| Perhaps we should have new rules around email. | Perhaps we should have new rules around email. |
| Switch to phone conversations –or better yet, have face to face conversations | Switch to phone conversations –or better yet, have face to face conversations |
| Caution will see us move important communication from written to verbal communication. | Caution will see us move important communication from written to verbal communication. |
| When I worked in a political office (three months for Labor in NSW in the fag end of its political rein if you really must know), important conversations happened by phone or in person. Not by text, and definitely not by email. | When I worked in a political office (three months for Labor in NSW in the fag end of its political rein if you really must know), important conversations happened by phone or in person. Not by text, and definitely not by email. |
| Nothing is more scary than the supersonic roar down the phone line of some NSW Labor staffer of the NSW right blasting you after you accidentally put something juicy in an email. “You may as well have just sent that to Simon Benson at the Telegraph!” Ruin or embarrassment is only one FOI or leak away. | Nothing is more scary than the supersonic roar down the phone line of some NSW Labor staffer of the NSW right blasting you after you accidentally put something juicy in an email. “You may as well have just sent that to Simon Benson at the Telegraph!” Ruin or embarrassment is only one FOI or leak away. |
| Face to face conversations leave no trace. In the workplace, decisions about firing, hiring and disciplinary procedures that don’t leave a paper trail make it more difficult to take legal action if something goes wrong further down the line. Savvy bosses, politicians and corporations will increasingly take the verbal route to avoid accountability later on. Maybe you should do the same. | Face to face conversations leave no trace. In the workplace, decisions about firing, hiring and disciplinary procedures that don’t leave a paper trail make it more difficult to take legal action if something goes wrong further down the line. Savvy bosses, politicians and corporations will increasingly take the verbal route to avoid accountability later on. Maybe you should do the same. |
| Going, going, gone – erase all chats | Going, going, gone – erase all chats |
| Possibly the most intimate form of electronic communication are “chat” functions. Bouncing back and forth faster than the speed of speech, chat can get down and dirty, close and confiding, very quickly. How many colleagues are sitting across from the office right now, engaged in a real time bitchy take down of what their boss is wearing, or how their colleague Petra is a total bogan with a drinking problem? It’s like meetings at the watercooler but it can go all day, just flashing at the bottom right of the screen like disco lights. | |
| Imagine if your chats were leaked! There’d only be one or two people still employed in each organisation after HR did a sweep. People would be DYING OF SHAME after their chats were exposed. So make sure all your chats are set to “off the record” or have your chats in person, whispering, while making coffee in the office kitchen. | Imagine if your chats were leaked! There’d only be one or two people still employed in each organisation after HR did a sweep. People would be DYING OF SHAME after their chats were exposed. So make sure all your chats are set to “off the record” or have your chats in person, whispering, while making coffee in the office kitchen. |
| Think about what would happen if someone was to hit the forward button | Think about what would happen if someone was to hit the forward button |
| You have trusted friends who you would tell anything to. But it only takes one person on a group email to forward something you’ve sent for it to go out of your control. | You have trusted friends who you would tell anything to. But it only takes one person on a group email to forward something you’ve sent for it to go out of your control. |
| Think the nude pics you send to your lovers, the blow-by-blow account of last night’s one-night-stand, your true thoughts on what you really think of your boss/lecturer/priest/parents – these are only one click away from death by embarrassment. | Think the nude pics you send to your lovers, the blow-by-blow account of last night’s one-night-stand, your true thoughts on what you really think of your boss/lecturer/priest/parents – these are only one click away from death by embarrassment. |
| Whatever we may think of Barry or Nova, if they have one thing to offer us, it is to be more cautious when writing emails. | Whatever we may think of Barry or Nova, if they have one thing to offer us, it is to be more cautious when writing emails. |