Privacy: Phones, Emails, Internet

Privacy: Phones, Emails, Internet

The European Courts of Justice gave a further decision recently regarding the importance of Human Rights and the right to Privacy when it comes to communications - Copeland -v- United Kingdom [COPLAND v. THE UNITED KINGDOM - 62617/00 [2007] ECHR 253 (3 April 2007) ]. The impact of this decision will again focus minds on what is reasonable conduct and relevancy of performing the conduct in the first place. The elements to the case of Copeland began in 1998 relating to monitoring of the Complainant's communications, revealed in 2000. However, such monitoring was before the Human Rights Act 1998 came into effect in October 2000 and prior to The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) Regulations 2000 having effect due to the requirements of The Regulations of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Two important elements of the last two pieces of legislation are: prevent or reduce cases of spying on peoples' communications; and remedy by which to measure whether the conduct and actions are unlawful or not.

I have some understanding of these issues. Back in 2001 I was head of a Fraud and Security SIG in the UK for an association whose members spent approx £8B per annum on communications. You could say I used this time over a four year period to increase my forensic skillsets for evidence arising in the workplace. One issue I dealt with in 2001 was Communications Surveillance in the Workplace in responce to the requirements in The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) Regulations.

I generated a discussion document and researched certain relevant issues at that time and the document was circulated to members and other interested parties. It is based on aspects of UK and EU legal issues. I have looked back in archive and have put a .pdf document into a Winrar file, which can be downloaded:

http://www.filebucket.eu//files/25/Communications%20Surveillance%20Workplace.rar.

This document is a 2001 document, so you need to be aware of latency of the document as to its usefulness in today's marketplace and forensic investigation.

A copy of the full Judgment can be found at: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2007/253.html.