Need a security guard to stop you being snooped on?

A recent article in the British publication The Times reported that the government there was warning that employers could face prosecution if they "snoop" on workers' email messages. Last year in Australia, the Workplace Surveillance bill of 2005 similarly inflicted criminal charges on employers who read employees' mail.

This is a very different story from the U.S., where in general courts have held that if employers own the computers and Internet connection, they have the right to monitor what's being done with them.

Of course, Europe and other foreign countries tend to be much less-user friendly for employers in many ways - witness the reason demonstrations in France over the idea of giving employers the right to fire young workers (and the government's subsequent caving in on the issue). European countries have federally mandated vacation time, as well, and employees take an average of five weeks off work each year.

While European laws tout their protections of individuals' privacy to the extent that a company isn't allowed to read email it's paying for, apparently those protections don't extend to the government. No privacy there -- another Times article was quoted as saying the British government is planning to fit all cars with a microchip to automatically report speeding, illegal parking and road tax evasion to authorities. If the Electronic Vehicle Identification (EVI) system is implemented, critics say the cars would be monitored by roadside sensors.

Privacy is important, and employers should certainly be required to protect confidential employee data such as medical information, social security numbers, home addresses/phone numbers etc. from outsiders. However, some of these privacy laws seem a little like red herrings. Governments pass legislation that purports to give their citizens the right to privacy while at the same time taking away all privacy from government intrusion.

It's a trend that I hope we don't import anytime soon.

Our government is already doing enough to aid and abet the identity thieves. For instance, ever notice that the IRS forms, in their instructions, say you must give your street address rather than a P.O. box? I don't have a problem with having them know my street address, but I don't want them to mail correspondence there (which invariably has my social security number on it), where a thief could easily steal it from my mailbox. Likewise, state governments should allow us to use mailing addresses other than our residences on our driver's licenses. They can still require you provide them with your street address to keep on file for law enforcement, but keep that information off the license itself, which we have to display to merchants and others with whom we do the most casual business.

Let's start taking privacy seriously, where it matters most.

QUESTION:

I have a small business and I use Microsoft Outlook for my email client in a non-Exchange environment. I want to export my .PST file to back it up, but I'm also worried about someone else being able to access the backup file if I store it in a network location so the copy will be available in case of a disk crash. Is there a way to protect it?

ANSWER:

You can configure Outlook to encrypt the data when you export it to a personal folder (PST) file. In the File menu, select Import and Export and choose to export to a Personal Folder File (.pst). Enter the path where you want to save the .PST and then, under Encryption Settings, select High Encryption. Type in a password that you can use to access the encrypted file. For best security, choose not to save the password to your password list.