[clug] OT: ANU outsourcing email to outlook.com

[Robert Edwards]

On 23/07/13 11:49, Andrew Donnellan wrote:
> On 23/07/13 11:16, Carlo Hamalainen wrote:
>> * ANU: Microsoft Outlook
>> * Monash: Google gmail
>>
>> Any others?
>>
>> I wonder what they do with all that email.
>
> I know USyd and UNSW have also just transitioned to Office 365, and
> there's a few others that are using Google Apps as well. Seems you just
> can't escape being swallowed up by The Cloud. (Not to mention it's
> ridiculously hard to find reliable, working configuration settings for
> Office 365 IMAP/SMTP...)
>
>
> On 23/07/13 11:33, Robert Edwards wrote:
>> I am surprised you only just got this - I was led to believe that all
>> ANU students were "migrated" (in more ways than one) to Office 365
>> back in Jan.
>
> Most undergrads were migrated back in December last year, but
> postgrads/undergrads who also hold employment are being migrated
> section-by-section, which would explain why Chris only received it today
> (myself and the casuals in CECS Admin/RSCS were migrated around June
> presumably around the same time as yourself). According to
> https://itservices.anu.edu.au/projects/updates/anu-email/latest-updates.php
> there's still a few areas left to go.
>
> I'm curious whether there are any FOI Act/Archives Act issues with the
> ANU email setup. I know a lot of people at ANU, including staff members,
> forward their official email on to their private email, typically Gmail,
> which is a practice I have huge problems with - as a Commonwealth
> authority the ANU has specific legal obligations as with government
> information generally. At least with the Office 365 setup it's
> /contractually/ under university control, albeit not
> physically/technically, though I'm curious to know what the archives
> policy is on this.
>
>
> Andrew
>

A bigger issue, for me, is the transmission of medical certificates and
accompanying documentation, some of which contains detailed medical
information about students seeking special consideration etc. Generally,
paper copies are scanned on our MFDs and then e-mailed to relevant
lecturers etc. - straight out of the country and back again. I believe
this may be the single biggest issue with the use of a transborder
service such as Office 365 and I am certain that it is in violation of
the Commonwealth Privacy Act. I am in the process of seeking a legal
opinion about this.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.