E-Mail monitoring is the concrete arrangement of the monitoring (see monitoring state) on the service E-Mail.

Legal situation in Germany

After telecommunications law all operators, that offer telecommunication services for the public, i.e. public E-Mail servers must operate "§110 and telecommunications monitoring regulation, that have more than 1,000 "“, "„monitoring "“to be since the year 2005. That means: As soon as a E-Mail monitoring is arranged, it must be able to be accomplished immediately. The term Teilnehmeranschluss is not clearly defined.

Costs

, The operator has to bear the cost, both of reproaching the monitoring technology and of concrete execution. Appropriate solutions cost starting from approximately 20,000 EUR upward.

Who may arrange the

Depending upon case and legal basis usually:

• a judge
• a responsible Federal Minister or national Minister
• Police
• Tariff
• Federal Office for protection of the constitution
• a national office for protection of the constitution

How does the monitoring

It is supervised on the basis E-Mail addresses. Complete E-Mail traffic must in addition in the Mail server or a separate filter on the existence of a looked for E-Mail address in used minutes (e.g. Smtp, POP3, IMAP, Webmail) to be examined. If such an E-Mail address was found, at least the "“connecting data"” become (e.g. Sender, receiver, date, time of etc.) usually however also a copy of the complete E-Mail by ftp to a server of the supervising authority (= user) transfer. The connection between E-Mail server/filters and authority server (monitoring center) is coded by a VPN, so that no unauthorized one of the monitoring measure as such or contents of the supervised enamels experiences.

Ironically E-Mail users can the use of such a monitoring measure by use of similar coding procedures (VPNs and in particular PGP/GnuPG) limit or destroyed make.

Unsettled questions

• How does one count "“

This would suggest that a natural or legal entity counts also then as only one participant, if this person bspw. 1000 E-Mail accounts uses. How one counts, if a company (= legal entity) for its 1000 E-Mail accounts uses 1000 coworkers with an external Then is the participant the one company or is it the 1000

• May a E-Mail server operator inform about the fact that in its concrete case E-Mail traffic is

An operator of E-Mail servers may inform its customers surely about the fact that he is subject to the legal requirements telecommunications law (TKG) and the telecommunications monitoring regulation and these becomes fair, which should be anyway clear, since it concerns a legal obligation. In practice the operators will however defensively deal opposite their customers with the topic rather, since this no particularly positive Marketingsignal is safe, although the customer it should be clear that for each operator possible the monitoring on or other kind make must (also with less than 1000 participants).

The operator may not inform however under any circumstances a up-to-date supervised participant about the current monitoring, since this would be then warned. On the other side however the obligation insists for the authority that the participant concerned is informed after conclusion of the monitoring measure about kind and range of the accomplished monitoring.

See also

• Externally stored data storage

Related links

• Federal net agency (formerly RegTP)
  • Information for the technical conversion of monitoring measures
  • Additional information for the operators of E-Mail servers
  • Downloads: see and "“documents for the operators of E-Mail servers"”

• Heise article to the costs of the E-Mail monitoring
  • http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/53559
  • http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/52954

• Eco - federation of the German Internet economy registered association.
  • "„Petersberger explanation "“against Internet monitoring

Articles in category "E-Mail monitoring"

We found here 13 articles.

Related Websites

We found here 5 related websites.

• Advanced Email Monitoring - Email Spy Software
  Advanced Email Monitoring - flagship product from Email Spy Software products line.


• Companies ramping up e-mail monitoring | CNET News.com
  Companies ramping up e-mail monitoring | Survey finds that 63 percent of companies employ or plan to employ personnel to monitor employee e-mail.


• InformationWeek.com
  While there are practical reasons for monitoring E-mail, the practice can ... E-mail monitoring is a sticky issue, and there aren't easy answers as to ...


• MONITORING EMPLOYEE E-MAIL: EFFICIENT WORKPLACES VS. EMPLOYEE PRIVACY
  There are many companies that are currently marketing e-mail monitoring services. ... Employers desiring to avoid liability for monitoring employee e-mail ...


• Study: Web, e-mail monitoring spreads | CNET News.com
  Study: Web, e-mail monitoring spreads | Up to 14 million US workers are subject to continuous surveillance of their e-mail and Internet use, according to a ...