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Materiały zamieszczone na stronie Generalnego Inspektora Ochrony Danych Osobowych (GIODO) dostępnej pod adresem www.giodo.gov.pl mają charakter archiwalny.

POZOSTAŃ NA STRONIE ARCHIWALNEJ (GIODO)

The electronic mail address – urgently needed data

WWW Forms

When visiting the web sites we often give our e-mail address while filling in the forms. It is important not to give our e-mail address on the unknown and unchecked web sites. The data from the forms are usually automatically processed. With no human interference the data can be entered into the database and connected with other information which are handed over by people consciously or unconsciously (for instance Internet navigation paths).

Sometimes we are also asked to give the e-mail addresses of our friends. Often we are given a possibility to inform our friends about interesting websites or to send our friend greetings or an occasional card. It needs to be underlined that by doing this we give the address of our friend to the website that renders such services. It shall be verified whether the service is known and trustworthy. The owner of the address shall give the consent to the processing of his/her data by such entity.

Our own Web sites

While constructing our own Web site we are often asked to give our contact data - including the e-mail address. We shall remember, however, that the newly constructed site will be visited not only by people but also by robots. WWW robots are the programs that automatically search through the web resources in order to find and examine specific dependences and information. Some robots are directly set to automatically acquire the e-mail address.

While putting the e-mail address on the website it shall be modified in the way that would allow only the intended human recipient to know how to read the address. For instance the address:

Jan @ Kowalski . for instance . pl

Can be written down as:

Jan @ NO . SPAM . Kowalski. For instance . pl, or

Jan ERACE . CAPITAL . Kowalski . LETTRSfor instance . pl


What is clearly visible to a human being is not visible for a robot. This solution has one weakness. It requires additional actions from the persons visiting the website. More sophisticated way is to generate the address by using the active scripts (such as: JavaScript) by an internet browser. In this case there is no need of any action from the person visiting the site in order to properly interpret the address. The address written in this way will be properly shown on the site. Internet robots will not be able to identify and acquire the address.


Discussion forums

The comments of participants of the forum are available not only for people interested in taking part in the discussion but also for the robots searching for the addresses. It would be an effective way of protection to use one address to participate in the forums and other one for every day correspondence.

Addressing and editing the messages

While mailing the massages to many recipients the right to privacy of the recipients shall be properly protected. If those persons are not acquainted with each other making the addresses available for all participants would be highly inappropriate. For avoiding such situation it is important to complete the fields:

Hidden copy, BCC

Instead of:

To, From, Carbon Copy, Copy.

Similar breach of provisions can be made while forwarding the messages. In such situation the recipient usually encloses the original headline.

In the headline there is a time of reception of the message, the sender and what is more important the recipients of the original message. If the recipient to whom we direct the message does not know all the other recipients the information concerning them shall be deleted.


Almost everybody has an e-mail (just like a private phone number). The electronic mail service is one of the most popular Internet services. It offers a vast scope of possibilities for global communication. What is also very important sending e-mails is free of charge. Therefore the scope of misuse in this field is bigger than in any other electronic media. So the conscious protection of e-mail addresses is a very important task.


More information concerning the protection of e-mail address is available on the website of the technical service of the Bureau of the Inspector General for Personal Data Protection at:

http://techinfo.giodo.gov.pl/poczta.html

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