No. The electronic resources provided to you for use at work are owned by the State of North Carolina, and you must have no expectation of privacy in the equipment or in the information sent, received or stored on that equipment. UNCW allows for incidental personal use of electronic resources provided that the use is in accordance with policy. Generally, personal emails would not constitute public records. However, the NC Public Records Act and/or E-discovery rules in litigation may obligate the university to examine all emails on a university computer, PDA or server in order to assess the nature and scope of the content. The emails may also be discoverable in litigation or be subject to disclosure under a subpoena. Bottom line – if you do not want someone to read personal emails that you have sent and/or received from the university’s equipment and system, do not send them and notify your friends and family not to send any personal emails to your UNCW email account. (OGC 6/25/09)
