Computer and Technology Forensics Expert: Managing the Risky Business of Company E-Mail

As an employer, Human Resources Director, or Risk Management Supervisor, ask yourself this question: "Do our employees think about the legal risk of sending communications over the internet?" If you are like the majority of companies, your answer would be, "It is highly improbable". It is a very common problem amid the work place, for an employee to believe their electronic communications are transient, temporary and, once deleted, untraceable and therefore, harmless.

The fact is e-mail, faxes and even cellular phones leave a trace. Just one e-mail sent from your employee to the employee of a different company passes through an average of four different computer systems. This creates a trail making e-mail real, traceable, and permanent.

As an industry leader in Computer and Technology Forensics for the past 20 plus years, we have documented, during the examination of electronic systems, employees who frequently say/save things into e-mails or store on a computer, things they would never say anywhere else. Either having an employee delete a potentially damaging or inflammatory e-mail or even an employee deleting an e-mail on their own, does not protect anyone. In fact, it could in the end harm everyone involved.

If a complaint or inappropriate conduct of an employee has risen to the level where you as an owner/supervisor, need to consult a Computer and Technology Forensics expert, one of the first areas checked is for deleted documents and/or e-mails. These items cause red flags during an examination of equipment, and the original items can and most likely will be found and/or reconstructed. It is very important to understand that the intentional destruction of evidence is a felony, and if proven, could land one in jail.

An example of computer message in a court case dates back to the infamous trial of some of the Los Angeles Police being tried in the 1991 beating of Rodney King. One of the officers created a computer message stating, "... I haven't beaten anyone that bad in a long time." This obviously became admissible in court.

A more recent example, is one in which we as a company were hired in a libel case. The libeler was using the internet to post messages on a public bulletin board that were both slanderous and libelous against a competitor in the same field. This person felt that by using "anonymous" e-mails and postings, this would increase their own standing within the same professional community. What the libeler didn't count on was the traceability of the e-mails to their home, cell phone and company computer systems. We were able to locate the electronic trail, and with this information obtain, on behalf of the client, a court order to confiscate the equipment in order to create image copies of the electronic systems. As a result, in order to keep the issue private, the libeler agreed to a significant out of court settlement.

As an owner/supervisor, it is left to you to consider and take great care in educating your employees in what should or shouldn't be put in writing. In addition, it is also up to you to make your employees aware how the written word is conveyed when read.

We have now asked and answered two very important questions. First, the majority of employees do not consider the legal risk of electronic communications. Second, as an owner/supervisor why it is crucial you understand the potential legal ramifications. The remainder of this article is devoted to assisting you in creating and/or updating your current policies.

In today's litigious society, company's both large and small should have company policies. These policies have traditionally covered areas from dress codes to vacation policies. Within the past five years companies have begun adopting IT policies, generally found within the employee handbook. As a professional Computer and Technology Forensics company, when we are called in to examine hard drives and/or servers due to a company suspecting the improper use of systems, we also discuss the company's IT policies with the appropriate supervisor or IT manager.

In many cases we have found that most policies do not adequately cover what is necessary in the computer and electronic communication age. Companies should have a very clear e-mail and technology use policy. One of the more important ones usually not covered, and unfortunately to the detriment of the employer, is an e-mail retention policy. Since many industries are governed by different and specific federal and/or state statutes on how long information must be retained, your policy should reflect these guidelines.

The policy should be as specific as possible in what types of communications are kept and how long. Make it clear there are both business and legal reasons for the company keeping such information. Information from e-mails as well as other electronic systems can be used in many types of cases, including: harassment, discrimination, antitrust, retaliation, Americans with Disabilities Act, insider trading, accounting fraud, improper trade secret disclosure and more!

REMEMBER- The intentional destruction, of any kind, of evidence relevant to a current or pending lawsuit contained in the e-mail or e-mail attached document, is a felony, and if proven, could land one in jail.

As an owner/supervisor, take a moment to examine your current IT or company's technology policy. If your company doesn't currently have an IT or technology policy-get one! While you will need to insure the individual needs of your company are met, following are some topics of what you should consider including in your usage polices:

    Electronic information ownership
    Monitoring of technology use
    Acceptable use of company technology
    Acceptable content

If you currently hold meetings with your employees or publish a company newsletter, these are excellent venues to use to educate your employees. Utilize these opportunities to let them know there are certain things they should be aware of when sending or responding to e-mails. Employees should be counseled to be cautious and to not make statements that can be considered a legal conclusion. Let your employees know they should utilize the knowledge and expertise within the company by picking up the phone and calling their supervisor or Human Resource Department.

When educating your employees about the content of an e-mail or using other forms of traceable electronic technology, train the employee to ask themselves these simple questions:

    Should I put this in e-mail or should I call?
    Would I write this down knowing that it may exist forever?
    Would I put this on a postcard and mail it?
    Would I want to see this printed in the newspaper?
    Would I want this to get into the hands of my company's competition?
    Would I want this to get into the hand of my worst enemy?

Electronic communications are not transient, temporary or untraceable. E-mail is evidence. Education and proper policies go a long way to keep both employees and the employer from ending up in a potential lawsuit trying to explain the written word.

Computers and Technology in the Academic Learning of Young Children

In today's world, computers have become a familiar fixture in the daily lives of children and adolescents, offering a wide range of learning and entertainment tools.

While surveys have indicated that boys are heavier users of computer games and visit websites more often than girls, no gender differences have emerged for chatting, using e-mail, or doing schoolwork on the computer. Additionally, both teenage boys and girls have expressed equal confidence in their computer skills.

On average, parents estimate that their school-age children and adolescents use the computer approximately 1.5 hours per day. Computers, electronic games and toys, and technology in general largely influence and affect the lives of children. Technology has thus proven to be largely capable of enriching the lives of children, especially in the areas of academic and social learning and development.

Computers for instance, can have rich cognitive and social benefits. Children as young as 3 years of age like computer activities and are capable of typing in simple commands on a standard keyboard. Additionally, in today's classrooms, small groups often gather around the machine, and children more often collaborate while working with the computer instead of using traditional paper and pencil methods.

As soon as children start to become literate (being able to read and write), they can make use of the computer for word processing. This lets them write without struggling with handwriting, and they can revise text meanings and style, and check their spelling. As a result, children tend to worry less about making mistakes, and their written products end up longer and of higher quality.

Specially designed computer languages introduce children to programming skills. With the support of adults, children's efforts with computer programming can lead to improved concept formation, problem solving and creativity. Furthermore, as children must detect errors in their programs to make them work, programming will assist them in reflecting on their though processes. This will inevitably lead to gains in meta-cognitive knowledge and self-regulation. Also, while programming, children are particularly likely to collaborate, persist in the face of challenge, and demonstrate positive attitudes toward learning. This is consistent with Vygotsky's theory in showing that social interaction supporting children's mastery of challenging computer tasks is capable of fostering a wide range of higher cognitive processes.

Children and adolescents spend much time using home computers purely for entertainment purposes. Many computer games emphasize speed and action in sometimes violent plots where children advance by shooting at and evading enemies. Children additionally play more complex exploratory and adventure games with themes of conquest and aggression and sports games. These include football and soccer. Children likewise enjoy simulation games, for example creating and caring for virtual pets (which require attention to "stay alive"), entering virtual realities (such as an ecosystem where the player mutates plants and animals into new species), and role-playing characters.

Speed-and-action computer games cultivate attentional and spatial skills in both boys and girls. However, while offering opportunities for learning, extensive playing of simulation games might risk blurring the distinction between virtual and real life.

Many youths use the computer to communicate. While using the internet causes some potential for causing disengagement from real life, it does hold much value in letting users acquire computer skills, information, and enabling communication.