Manchester Housing Commission shifts commission email to shared mailbox after IT audit; commissioners raise privacy concerns

Summary

City information systems converted the Housing Commission's user account to a shared mailbox to address security and tracking issues. IT described quarantine filters and forwarding rules; a commissioner said the timing and staff review of her social media raised concerns about gatekeeping of resident messages.

The Manchester Housing Commission on April 9 heard that the commission's email account was converted from a regular user account to a shared mailbox after an audit by city information systems, a change IT described as intended to reduce security and password‑sharing risks.

Rich Martinez of Information Systems told commissioners the audit found multiple mayoral–office accounts created as user accounts that should have been shared mailboxes. Martinez said shared mailboxes cannot be used to sign in on a workstation or mobile device and are limited to about 50 gigabytes of storage. He said the change will let staff track who sends mail “as Housing Commission” and avoid the security problem of one generic password being shared and used from anywhere.

Martinez described the city's quarantine and filtering process…

Manchester Housing Commission shifts commission email to shared mailbox after IT audit; commissioners raise privacy concerns

Summary

Subscribe to keep reading