Laws Governing Email Privacy

Email privacy is a matter of serious concern as it one of the least safe methods of communication which is ironically relied greatly for conveyance of messages of varying sensitivity. To maintain the safety and privacy of emails, following are various laws that monitor the activity of various organizations with which a person interacts on nearly everyday basis.

Potential Points of Interception

An email does not immediately reach the recipient’s end once we hit the “send” button but makes various stops at different points; all of which are susceptible to hackers. One way to maintain privacy is to opt for various secure email services each of which is ranked according to its efficiency at 8bit Sumo ranking.

The first step in email transit is the journey which begins from the sender’s device, it then moves toward the server of the recipient and then on towards to the recipient’s device. Each of these three points are vulnerable to observance by a third party, be it authorized or unauthorized.

For those who thought the issue was limited to hacker monitoring the email was on the way to the recipient’s inbox, there’s something more. An email leaves a copy which is stored at every point which poses additional problems. These copies are not removed if the user deletes the email from the respective folders and continue to exist for a long period of time.

Laws Regulating Email Privacy

There are a number of email privacy laws which ensures the privacy of email and maintain various security policies which include;

Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) deals with the safety of encrypted emails that contain identifiable health information of a person. The emails is to be protected from both access and exploitation and is required to be abided by all health providing organizations.

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) deals with the protection of emails containing the information of a credit card holder by means of encryption and that all the relevant service providers should maintain proper documentation.

The Gramm-Leach Bliley Act (GLBA) deals with the protection of information of consumers who have opted for a service by any financial institution. The law requires such institutions to elucidate the process of sharing of individual’s information and how one can opt out from the compulsion to share their information with third parties.

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