[Year 12 IT Apps] Emails as a legal document

[ken price]

                                                               Disclaimer -
this is comment, not a legal opinion!

The "status of email vs traditional letter" issue is always a great topic
for students to discuss. Eventually the discussion converges on how anyone
(at any time in history) can prove or authenticate their identity. You'd
think this would be much easier now than in the days when laws were first
formed. Maybe.

Depending on what we mean by "an email" it may have a lot or no credibility.
If we are just talking about a printed artefact - well, that could be
generated by anyone or anything, and might not even have originated from an
email system. If we are talking about "an email" as a digital product and
associated timestamped mail server logs from several mail systems, including
sender and recipient, correlated with logon information from corporate
servers, things start to take on a bit more credibility (though as Adrian
points out there are still many ways in which this can be produced
fraudulently)

However we need to compare this to the "signed letter". This relies on the
notion that the signature is somehow unique and validates the content in the
letter. This is clearly a big assumption in this century - for example it
would take very little time to concoct a letter conferring you with a
knighthood and attach this signature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_II_Signature.svg. Traditional
letters carry few or none of the multiple points of verification that a
complete collection of email data can contain.

There is a bit of a discussion about conditions of admissibility, rules of
evidence and what constitutes a record of information  in
http://www.naa.gov.au/images/records%20in%20evidence%20in%20word%20format%20for%20website%5B1%5D_tcm2-7936.pdfand
you will see that it can apply to an email. In effect, email as a
technology appears to have no special status over other formats of
communication.

The short answer is that there is probably no short answer!

As with most legal questions, legal advice should be sought, but lawyers
seem to like to deal with specifics rather than generalisations so you may
not get a clean answer. A lot of useful class discussion could come out of
it though.

kp

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 2:01 PM, ATKINSON-BUCK, Damien <
Damien.ATKINSON-BUCK at ivanhoe.com.au> wrote:

>  Hi folks,
>
>             I’ve been asked to have a look at a friend’s email policy – the
> preamble into it got me a little flustered and I’m just trying to work out
> the legitimacy of the statement “Email carries the same legal status as a
> signed letter or memo.” I’ve had a look in the telecommunications act and
> the postal act but cannot find it. I’m wondering if anyone out there knows
> if this statement is pure smoke or not.
>
> Thanks
>
> Damien
>
>
>
> *Damien Atkinson-Buck*
> Member of Academic Staff (Secondary)
>
> *p:*
>
> +61 3 9490 3848
>
> *f:*
>
> +61 3 9490 3490
>
> *e:*
>
> damien.atkinson-buck at ivanhoe.com.au
>
> *w:*
>
> http://myivanhoe.net
>
> *The Ridgeway Campus*
> PO Box 91 The Ridgeway
> Ivanhoe Victoria
> 3079 Australia
>
>
> <http://myivanhoe.net/>
>
>
> <http://myivanhoe.net/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Dr Ken Price MACS ACCE Professional Associate.
President, TASITE
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