Careful with that passionate, romantically-worded email to your crush. As with most other email-providing institutions, Harker’s Intellectual Technology (IT) department can access the contents of student and faculty Google accounts.

Director of IT and Learning Innovation and Design Daniel Hudkins said that he can change students’ school email passwords to access the contents of Google accounts.

“Now the next question is fairly obvious: how often does that happen? Never,” Hudkins said.

Student safety is a possible reason for searching through a student’s emails. Hudkins stated that he would consult the administration before entering an account.

“In other words, this is not something that would ever happen casually,” Hudkins said.

Student and faculty email accounts are provided by Google Apps for Education (GAFE), a free product that allows Harker to give students email addresses under the students.harker.org email domain. It also provides access to applications such as Google Drive and Google Docs, which are tied to a user’s email password.

Hudkins advised privacy-concerned students to send private messages from personal email accounts. He compared institutional email accounts to school lockers, stating that both are the property of the school.

“You have a reasonable expectation of privacy which should not mistaken for confidentiality,” Hudkins said.

Linus Li (9) felt that the school’s policy regarding Google accounts invaded his privacy.

“Even though some people don’t use their school email, the school email is a way for me to connect with my friends, and we have a lot of personal stuff on there,” Linus said. “The fact that they can see anything about my email is extremely frustrating.”

Eric Cheung (12) feels neutral about the school having free access to his email account.

“I tend to not put personal things in that email,” he said. “I feel ok [about it], because we’re not restricted to using that email.”

When regarding emails, there is no privacy in their email accounts. Once sent, the sender may choose to do what they desire with it.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on Nov. 21, 2014.