A student in a public university dormitory room had a â??reasonable expectation of privacyâ? for his personal computer and its hard drive, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday. The decision also found that despite that right to privacy, an administrator in the case under review had the right to conduct a remote search of the computer â?? without a warrant â?? because of the circumstances involved.
The decision â?? by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit â?? is among the highest level court rulings to date on a set of legal questions pitting privacy vs. security that are increasingly present in academe. While experts cautioned that the decision involved a specific set of facts, several also said it provided guidance for students on their privacy rights and for administrators at public colleges and universities on setting computer policies that give them the flexibility they feel they need to prevent security breaches.
The ruling dates back to an incident in 1999, and the actions of administrators at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, when they were notified by Qualcomm Corporation, a San Diego company that produces wireless computing devices, that someone on Madisonâ??s network was hacking into the companyâ??s network.