Council resumes email blocking
A council embroiled in controversy over the way it screens emails has decided to restart interception practices, but councillors will not be snooped on this time.
The Horowhenua District Council stopped snooping in August after leaked documents revealed blacklisted members of the public and some elected representatives were having emails to council staff intercepted by chief executive David Clapperton.
The measures were designed to protect staff from abuse, Clapperton said, but two auditors were not comfortable with the process and the council halted it. Councillors have now decided to allow interceptions to resume, but have made key changes to the process. The screening will exclude elected members, who will instead be offered support to manage software that could treat emails as spam.
‘‘This is considered to be consistent with the principle of democratic accountability in that an elected representative should decide whether or not they engage with an individual, and if they choose not to engage, they can be held to account through the election process,’’ a council report says.
The exclusion is a major backdown, as the council had previously asserted its right to snoop on councillors’ emails.
At a meeting in Levin on Wednesday, councillors voted to allow officers to vet emails to staff that were deemed inappropriate.
Despite ongoing investigations by the Ombudsman and Privacy Commissioner’s office into the council’s email practices, councillors decided to introduce the policy without further advice.
The new policy – tabled at a council subcommittee – was largely the same as the council’s previous policy, report writer Mark Lester said.
Emails directed to staff members could be redirected to another email inbox before they reached the intended recipient, the report said.
Emails would be reviewed by one of two council privacy officers, as opposed to going to Clapperton. But he was required to know when someone was placed on the ‘‘quarantine list’’, Lester said.
The privacy officers would determine whether emails from blacklisted people should carry on to the intended recipient in full or with redacted information, or they could decide to block them completely. The officers would decide whether images or certain language was inappropriate. People in extreme breach of the policy could have all emails vetted for up to six months, or more if there were ongoing breaches, the report said.
The new policy was sent to the Ombudsman and the Privacy Commissioner’s office, but the subcommittee’s chairman Philip Jones said it could take until Christmas to get a response. When a response came through, the council could consider changing parts of the policy, he said.
Mayor Michael Feyen said he was pleased a policy was being created, but he abstained from voting as he wanted to wait for responses from the Ombudsman and Privacy Commissioner.