Govt. staff barred from using private e-mail for official purposes

Government employees have been barred from using private e-mail services for official communications.

“Users shall refrain from using private e-mail servers from government network. E-mail service authorised by the government and implemented by the IA (Implementing Agency under this policy is NIC) shall only be used for all official correspondence,” said the policy on use of IT resources notified last week.

The new policy also bars officials from using forward option in e-mails to non-government e-mail services.

“The e-mail services provided by other service providers shall not be used for any official communication,” the notification said.

This policy is applicable to all employees of Central Government and employees of those State or Union Territories governments that use the e-mail services of provided by Central Government.

This policy idea was mooted by the Department of Electronics and IT after whistle blower Edward Snowden claimed that U.S. intelligence agencies secretly monitors Internet data to spy on various countries, including India with help of some of software and Internet companies.

As per new policy, government officials will be allocated two e-mail ids — one based on designation and other on name.

“For personal correspondence, users may use the name-based e-mail id assigned to them on the Government authorised e-mail service,” the notification said.