Surveillance Case :

Breach Of Privacy At Harvard

By : Kshitij Galav
IBDP 1
CONTENTS
1. Surveillance
2. Types of Surveillance
3. Modes of Surveillance
4. Change in the IT Industry due to Surveillance
5. Ethical issues regarding Surveillance
6. Harvard Surveillance Case
7. Background information regarding the case
8. Reaction of the public
9. Aftermath of the search
10. Harvard’s defense
11. Final Verdict
12. Bibliography
SURVEILLANCE
● Surveillance is defined as the monitoring and
close observation of the behaviour, activities and
other dynamic information of a person or a group
of people.

● Individuals include criminals and other people of

importance.

● Groups may include political parties and other

organisations.
 TYPES OF SURVEILLANCE

● Computer Surveillance : This type of surveillance includes

the snooping of data that is transmitted across the
network.
● Telephone Surveillance : The official and unofficial
tapping of phone calls is heavily prevalent.

● Camera Surveillance : This is the most widespread form

of surveillance and is conducted in almost every country.
 MODES OF SURVEILLANCE

● Unmanned Surveillance Drones : The usage of these drones

have been increasing rapidly.
● RFID Microchips : These chips are used in credit cards, clothes
in stores, etc. These are now being used for surveillance.
CHANGE IN THE IT INDUSTRY DUE TO
SURVEILLANCE

● Rise of surveillance cases weakened the trust of the

public towards various companies.

● To regain the trust of the public, encryption of data

has been increases. An example of such a company
is Apple.
 ETHICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES FACED BY
SURVEILLANCE
● Many people consider surveillance as a breach of their
privacy and heavily criticize governments for doing so.

● On the other hand, governments defend their position by

stating that they are doing this for the protection of the
public.

● This surveilled data is then stored making it vulnerable to

various cyber threats.
HARVARD SURVEILLANCE CASE

● On the September of 2012, the administrators of

Harvard searched the email account of sixteen
deans.

● The information was leaked to the media and heavily

affected the image of the university.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION REGARDING THE
CASE
● The deans were not informed before nor just after when
the search took place.

● This fact came to the notice of the deans via a third

party.

● The dean who was responsible for the leaking of the

information was the only one informed of the search.
REACTION OF THE PUBLIC

● This news created a stir in the public.

● Harry Lewis, a former Harvard dean also had some

strong words against this action.

● Harry, who is also a computer scientist was one of

the founding members of the “E-Mail Privacy Policy”
of Harvard.
AFTERMATH OF THE SEARCH
● The Harvard deans were extremely upset with
Harvard and never thought Harvard would betray
their trust.

● This situation led to a Harvard dean step down

from her position.

● Evelynn M. Hammonds, first woman and

african-american to hold the post of dean in
Harvard stepped down.
 HARVARD’S DEFENSE
● Harvard stated that its policies allowed the searching of
the official e-mails of the faculty members in certain
situations.

● The policies clearly state that information regarding the

search should be provided to the appropriate faculty
members before or immediately after the conduction of
the search.

● Moreover, deans in universities are seen as “House

Staff” and not faculty members.
FINAL VERDICT

● The way they executed the search was ethically

and socially wrong.

● The search should have been conducted with

the informing of the deans regarding the
search, so that they wouldn’t have faced such
repercussions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
To ensure that accurate data is provided in this presentation, various images and
certain bits of information have been taken from the following websites :

1. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/28/us/massachusetts-harvard-dean/index.
html
2. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/3/9/cheating-leak-email-search/
3. https://www.boston.com/uncategorized/noprimarytagmatch/2013/03/08/ha
rvard-university-administrators-secretly-searched-deans-email-accounts-hunti
ng-for-media-leak
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/education/harvard-dean-in-e-mail-con
troversy-to-step-down.html
THANK YOU!