OT: legal obligations

[Jamon Camisso]

On January 16, 2008 13:42:18 John McGregor wrote:
> Hi Folk,
>          I repair PCs for a living and since most members of the
> public think that a back up is something you do when you put a car in
> reverse, this often entails digging through an old hard drive trying
> to recover files. I was doing just that on the weekend when news of
> the recent arrests for child porn activities were announced. This got
> me to wondering what my, and other computer techs', obligations are
> if we find illegal content when doing a similar search? Thoughts?

Legal or ethical? Legally I don't think we have any in Ontario (whereas 
Manitoba just introduced legislation aimed at just that question). 
Likely if you were party to the information you could be held liable 
for at least negligence.

Ethically, I'm not sure the question even bears asking. I couldn't 
imagine being able to sleep at night without reporting such egregious 
activities.

There are exceptions to doctor/patient disclosure, and lawyer/client 
privileges. There is a need for information professionals to have some 
sort of privacy guarantee for users in most cases, but there must be 
provisions for exceptions like the one you've mentioned.

Jamon
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