Public access to IU email

It was recently revealed that because IU is a public institution, the administration has the ability to access student’s University email accounts.

According to the Privacy of Electronic Information and Information Technology Resources Policy that we as IU students agree to, “legitimate reasons exist for persons other than an authorized account holder to access computers, electronic files or data related to use of the University
network.”

If you’re like 99.99 percent of the typical population, that’s a phrase you neglected to read in favor of skipping to the “agree” tab. It’s no great big secret none of us read that crap.

To be fair, it’s not exactly a comforting feeling to know that the University can access our email accounts at all. But it’s really not that big of a deal either.

The University accessing our emails isn’t an outright invasion of students’ personal space and privacy.

It’s a policy where a request must be made before jumping through a series of hoops in order to gain access to a student’s account. The request must be made within reason.

It should be a comfort to know that if a deranged student were threatening campus safety through his email, the University could potentially remedy the situation.

We live in an age where most people in our generation post their every thought and feeling on social media. Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are positively blemished with the opinions we find so important that our entire online social circle must see them.

Certainly our personal emails can’t be too far off from that.

We do use email under the guise that they are private and only for the eyes of the intended recipient.

With the knowledge that others can access your University email, maybe you shouldn’t use it as a personal diary chronicling your sordid love affairs and drama. That would be embarrassing and sad.

For starters, don’t conduct illegal affairs with your University email account.

If you’re using your @indiana.edu to chat up your drug dealer and set up your next purchase, you just deserve to get caught. It’s not exactly difficult to set up a Gmail account for that stuff.

As a matter of fact, just have a personal email for anything not dealing with the University. That way all your Urban Outfitters and Twitter update emails can route into one account away from your academic life.

Compartmentalize. Keep it organized.

Some people are probably paranoid enough to believe anyone with the right knowledge and level of boredom can access any of their email accounts, regardless of what email service they run through.

We live in an age where anything we say or do on the Internet is written in ink, and it will always be impossible to bury it completely.

That’s the policy we agree to as members of this generation. Those are just the facts regarding the fine print of life.