Students who connect their computers to a university network can expect a certain degree of privacy regarding their data, according to a ruling made by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ruling came as part of a decision regarding a warrantless search that had been conducted on a University of Wisconsin-Madison student's computer in 1999. While the appeals court ultimately ruled against the student and in favor of the warrantless search in that particular case, the judges made it clear that students in general are entitled reasonable expectations of privacy when connecting their personal computers to university networks. But the caveats are indeed important.

At Ars Technica.

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