An online civil liberties organisation has raised serious concerns about the implementation of an e-mail monitoring policy for NSW education institutions, while a teachers' body has issued a guarded response.

A trial is currently underway across 50 institutions in NSW to determine what effect the e-mail monitoring policy will have. The institutions range from small outback schools to large metropolitan schools, and includes some TAFEs. The e-mail accounts are part of a planned roll-out which will include all schools and TAFEs by the end of the year.

Jennifer Leete, the deputy president of the NSW Teachers Federation told ZDNet Australia   she expected the trial to reveal issues and problems with the system that hadn't been thought of yet. "That's why we're reasonably happy for it to be up and working at 50 sites," she said. "It will identify all of the issues we need to respond to."

The NSW Department of Education and Training will do the monitoring, with the ultimate aim to ensure appropriate use of the resource. "It's an e-mail system provided by the employer for use during work for the employer," said Leete.

While it is true teachers are employed by the NSW Department of Education and Training, the same cannot be said of the students whose e-mail will be monitored, or the approximately 2000 parents and citizens organisations which will also use the proposed e-mail system, according to the Electronic Frontiers Australia.

"This raises massive privacy issues for both the teachers and students, and this is a very over the top way of trying to solve the problem they're trying to solve," said Irene Graham, executive director of Electronic Frontiers Australia. "Teachers and students have a right to privacy."

Graham argued it would be better to have an acceptable use policy with penalties, and only monitor e-mail when there was suspicion of inappropriate use. She added that the system raises issues for the potential infringement of the Telecommunications Interception Act, depending on how the monitoring was conducted.

According to Leete, the job of the Teachers Federation is to inform its members of the context they're operating in. "We're definitely not saying we're for [the e-mail monitoring policy], we're definitely not saying we're against it," said Leete. "We have huge concerns that it not proceed until there has been a negotiated agreement around its use."

"I'm not suggesting there's someone listening to everything you write, but if they want to access e-mail about communications with Freddy Bloggs, they can do it," said Leete. "In a small number of cases that has already happened."

The NSW Department of Education and Training was contacted for comment but failed to reply by the time of publication.

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