(A) Introduction.
(1) Woodford County Fiscal Court provides its employees with systems to access the internet and use electronic mail (e-mail) so they can work more productively. The messages sent and received on the e-mail system, like other documents created by employees, are the property of Woodford County Fiscal Court. E-mail should not be used to communicate sensitive or confidential information. Employees should anticipate that an e-mail message might be disclosed to or read by individuals other than the intended recipient(s), since messages can be easily forwarded to other individuals. In addition, while Woodford County Fiscal Court endeavors to maintain the reliability of its e-mail system, employees should be aware that a variety of human and system errors have the potential to cause inadvertent or accidental disclosures of e-mail messages.
(2) This policy explains rules governing the appropriate use of the internet and e-mail and sets out Woodford County Fiscal Court’s rights to access messages on the e-mail system.
(B) Access to employee e-mail. Employees should not have any expectation of privacy with respect to messages or files sent, received or stored on Woodford County Fiscal Court’s e-mail system. Authorized access to employee e-mail by other employees or outside individuals includes but is not limited to the following:
(1) Access by the systems administration staff during the course of system maintenance or administration;
(2) Access approved by the employee, the employee’s supervisor or designee of Woodford County Fiscal Court when there is an urgent business reason to access the employee’s mailbox;
(3) Access approved by the employee’s supervisor or designee of Woodford County Fiscal Court when there is reason to believe the employee is using e-mail in violation of Woodford County Fiscal Court’s policies; and
(4) Access approved by Woodford County Fiscal Court’s human resource department or County Attorney in response to Woodford County Fiscal Court’s receipt of a court order or request from law enforcement officials for disclosure of an employee’s e-mail messages.
(C) Employee response to e-mail. Employees must review and respond to all business-related e- mail messages on a regular basis. In the event an employee does not have all the information to respond completely, he or she should acknowledge that he or she has received the message and follow up with complete information as soon as possible.
(D) Passwords. Each user accesses the e-mail system by means of a log-in name and password.
(1) Passwords are intended to keep unauthorized individuals from accessing messages stored on the system and establish the identity of the person sending an e-mail message. The failure to keep passwords confidential can allow unauthorized individuals to read, modify or delete e-mail messages; circulate e-mail forgeries; and download or manipulate files on other systems.
(2) The practice of using passwords should not lead employees to expect privacy with respect to messages sent or received (see division (B) of this section).
(3) Employees also should not disclose their log-in or password to anyone, except when required by an urgent business matter (see division (B)(2) of this section).
(E) Personal use. Woodford County Fiscal Court allows incidental personal use of its e-mail system subject to the following conditions and restrictions:
(1) Personal use must be infrequent and must not:
(a) Involve any prohibited activity (see division (F) below);
(b) Interfere with the productivity of the employee or coworkers;
(c) Consume system resources or storage capacity on an ongoing basis; or
(d) Involve large file transfers or otherwise impact or deplete system resources available for business purposes.
(2) Using e-mail to participate in any newsgroup, mailing list, bulletin board or other type of discussion forum that is not job-related is not incidental personal use and is strictly prohibited.
(3) Employees should not have any expectations of privacy with respect to personal e-mail sent or received on Woodford County Fiscal Court’s e-mail system. Employees should delete personal messages as soon as they are read or replied to. Employees should not store copies of the personal messages they have sent. Because e-mail is not private, employees should avoid sending personal messages that are sensitive or confidential.
(F) Prohibited activities. Employees are strictly prohibited from using the internet or e-mail system in connection with any of the following activities. This list is not all-inclusive, but a sampling of prohibited activities. Individual situations will be reviewed and investigated on a case-by-case basis as needed.
(1) Engaging in illegal, fraudulent or malicious activities;
(2) Transmitting statements, language, images or other materials that are reasonably likely to be perceived as offensive or disparaging of others based on race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, religious or political beliefs;
(3) Downloading, copying or otherwise obtaining music, movies, software and the like without proper purchase of products;
(4) Using abusive or objectionable language in either public or private messages;
(5) Knowingly visiting pornographic or illegal sites, disseminating, soliciting or storing sexually oriented messages or images;
(6) Participating in nonbusiness related activities that will cause congestion, disruption of networks or systems, including but not limited to internet games, online gaming, instant messaging and the like;
(7) Engaging in activities on behalf of organizations with no professional affiliation with the Woodford County Fiscal Court;
(8) Sending or storing offensive, obscene or defamatory material;
(9) Annoying or harassing other individuals;
(10) Sending uninvited e-mail of a personal nature;
(11) Using another individual’s account or identity without explicit authorization;
(12) Attempting to test, circumvent or defeat security or auditing systems;
(13) Permitting any unauthorized individual to access Woodford County Fiscal Court’s e-mail system; or
(14) Distributing or storing chain letters, jokes, solicitations or offers to buy or sell goods, or other nonbusiness material of a trivial or frivolous nature.
(G) Confidential information.
(1) All employees are expected and required to protect all confidential information. Confidential information should never be transmitted or forwarded to outside individuals or companies not authorized to receive the information.
(2) Woodford County Fiscal Court also requires its employees to use e-mail in a way that respects the confidential and proprietary information of others. Employees are prohibited from copying or distributing copyrighted material, for example software, database files, documentation or articles, using the e-mail system.
(3) E-mail is an inappropriate method of communicating certain types of confidential information. Employees should consult their supervisor and the systems administrator before e-mailing highly sensitive or confidential information.
(H) Storage policy. All documents created during the course of business are potentially subject to public access, including e-mail documents. Proper retention and storage of these documents is governed by the Local Government Record Retention Schedule issued by the Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives. Long-term retention of documents should not be on the electronic e-mail system; these documents must be printed to paper and stored appropriately.
(I) Encryption. Encrypting e-mail messages or attached files sent, stored or received on Woodford County Fiscal Court’s e-mail system is prohibited except where explicitly authorized by the court. Employees are prohibited from using or installing any encryption software without prior permission from the Woodford County Fiscal Court.
(J) Policy violations. Employees violating this policy are subject to discipline, up to and including termination. Employees using the internet or e-mail system for defamatory, illegal or fraudulent purposes and employees who access unauthorized areas of Woodford County Fiscal Court’s computer system also are subject to civil liability and criminal prosecution.
(Order 9, passed 2-10-2004)