According to new federal rules that went into effect Dec. 1, schools, businesses, and other organizations are required to keep tabs on all eMail, instant messages (IM), and other digital communications produced by their employees.

The rules, first approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in April, have been widely reported as important for businesses and other for-profit enterprises. But, according to legal experts familiar with the case, the High Court's ruling also applies to public schools and other nonprofit organizations.

The ruling--which states that any entity involved in litigation must be able to produce "electronically stored information" during the discovery process--the process in which opposing sides of a legal dispute must share evidence before trial--could have significant implications for school technology departments, especially in places where technicians routinely copy over backup discs and other information housed on school servers.

In an interview with eSchool News, Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner with Hogan & Hartson LLP, said that while the law has always required schools, corporations, and other entities to produce certain kinds of documentation as evidence in the discovery process, the latest ruling is an affirmation that eMail messages and electronic documents are part of that mix.

An expert on issues concerning technology and the law, Lindsay has called prematurely deleting or copying over eMail documents a matter of "virtual shredding."

Lindsay says the rules will require schools and other organizations to think about how and where they store digital information in advance of potential legal skirmishes. Schools, for example, might want to conduct technology inventories to better understand what types of eMail storage and data backup systems they have in place; establish guidelines for the kinds of information that must be saved and for those that can be deleted; and decide where to store critical data, so the information is easily accessible in the event of a problem, he said.

The new regulations don't constitute any major changes to the law per se, Lindsay said, but by noting that electronic communications should be preserved with the same care and diligence as other business-related documents, the High Court ruling forces managers "to recognize this distinction up front," giving schools, businesses, and even individual users an opportunity to be proactive in efforts to secure relevant computer-based information.

Many districts already are working with their staff members to help them understand they should expect limited privacy when using school-owned technology.

"We have a policy that employees need to sign indicating they have no right to consider anything that they do on our network--including our [voice-over-IP system]--as confidential," wrote Marc Liebman, superintendent of the Berryessa Union School District in San Jose, Calif.