Schools Think Twice About Gmail Citing Security, Ideological Concerns

The University of California-Davis has said it will not be adopting Gmail as its faculty and staff mail server because of "increased privacy risks that have come to light in recent weeks," despite the fact that students at the school are on the server.

Inside Higher Ed has more:

Outsourcing faculty and staff e-mail to Google might run afoul of the university's electronic communications policy, said Peter Siegel, the CIO at Davis, and other campus technology officials, in a letter dated April 30. That policy forbids the university from disclosing electronic communications records "without the holder's consent." It also proscribes selling or distributing e-communications "that contain personally identifiable information about individuals" to a third party without permission from those individuals.

In March, Yale put off plans to switch its server to Gmail due to potential "problems with 'cloud computing' ... technological risks and downsides, and ideological issues."

Does your school use Gmail? Do you worry about your privacy/security on it?