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o Complies with the procedures included below in this policy.

Email Privacy: email communications using Smith College’s email services may contain confidential or personal information, with certain
expectations regarding the privacy and disclosure of such communications. Electronic communications, including email, are subject to the
following limitations regarding privacy and access:

 Smith’s right to access and disclose information: Smith recognizes that members of the college community have some
reasonable expectations of privacy with regard to the electronic mail messages they send or receive. The college reserves the right
to access and disclose the contents of electronic mail messages, but will do so only when it has a legitimate work-related need to do
so. The college also reserves the right to disclose any electronic mail message to law enforcement officials.

The Responsible Executive of this policy will review any request for access to the contents of electronic mail without the consent
of a sender or recipient. Such requests must be approved in advance and any access undertaken without such approval is a breach
of college policy.
 Email service monitoring: ITS department systems staff routinely monitor information technology systems, including email
systems and services. If anomalies are found indicating the possibility of illegal activity or violations of college policy or security,
they will investigate further and report their findings to the Responsible Executive(s) of this policy.
 Suspected policy or legal breach investigation: the college may inspect the contents of electronic mail messages in the course
of an investigation triggered by indications of impropriety.

Email as an “official record” of the college: Email is considered an official resource for the communications of the college, and may be
subject to other institutional or legal regulations and compliance requirements pertaining to the official records of the institution. This
includes but is not limited to:

 compliance with legal actions such as litigation hold notices.
 records management requirements specified in the College’s “Records Retention” policy.
 compliance with FERPA and any other regulatory requirements that pertain to the content of a message or its attachments.

POLICY VIOLATIONS
Violations of college policies are adjudicated according to procedures outlined in the Student Handbook and the Staff Handbook, with
disciplinary consequences imposed by the adjudicating authority up to and including dismissal. Some offenses are punishable under state and
federal laws.

STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES

Standards for email attachments:
Attachments to email messages are expected to comply with the following standards and best practices recommendations:

 attachments should be clean of any viruses or malware embedded within the attachment.
 should not contain any information that is classified as “Protected”, unless the file is encrypted with a commonly accepted
encryption protocol, and the decryption key is communicated in some way other than in an email message to the recipient(s).
 must conform to this policy as though they are part of the email message or content.

Procedures for Bulk email: The following requirements govern the use of email services for the sending of “bulk email” messages:

 Distribution lists for bulk email to large numbers of constituents (100+), and that include non-Smith.edu email addresses, must be
sent using an officially supported bulk email service provider.
 Bulk email communications should be sanctioned by someone with governance oversight of the recipient group.
 Bulk email message content should adhere to the email composition standards included in this policy.

Additional guidelines for sending bulk, broadcast or distribution list email are listed in the ITS “Email Services Guidelines”
document online.

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