Princeton University Information Technology Policy

Actions that make the campus intimidating, threatening, demeaning or hostile for another person are considered serious offenses by the University. Contemporary technology makes it possible for mistakes to be made more rapidly, and spread more widely, than ever before.

When you compose, send, or redistribute electronic mail or voice mail, when you create or publish postings to World Wide Web pages (including images, message boards, social network sites, Twitter, or chat rooms), or mailing lists, or produce and submit for campus broadcast video materials, consider whether you would make those statements face to face with the person or people who may access your work. The same principles pertain regarding people or groups you may address outside the Princeton University community as to those within.

As stated in Rights, Rules, Responsibilities: "Respect for the rights, privileges, and sensibilities of each other is essential in preserving the spirit of community at Princeton. Actions which make the atmosphere intimidating, threatening, or hostile to individuals are therefore regarded as serious offenses. Abusive or harassing behavior, verbal or physical, which demeans, intimidates, threatens, or injures another because of personal characteristics or beliefs or their expression is subject to University disciplinary sanctions...."

When using the campus technologies or access to network technologies provided by the University, or in any other venue in which you are acting as an agent of the University, you must refrain from creating and sending, posting, or displaying, or causing to be sent or posted, or displayed, or assisting to create and send or cause to be sent, posted, or displayed, any malicious, harassing, or defamatory messages or statements regarding another person, via e-mail, instant message, text message, Twitter or voice mail, by posting to message boards, mailing lists, social networks or newsgroups, by posting to the World Wide Web or Google Plus, by issuing as a virtual reality avatar, or by inclusion in a video produced for broadcast via the campus network, TigerTV, or YouTube or similar service.

You must be sensitive to the public nature of shared facilities, and take care not to display on workstations in such locations inappropriate images, sounds or messages which could create an atmosphere of menace or harassment for others.

You also must refrain from transmitting to others in any location inappropriate images, sounds or messages that are clearly threatening, hostile, or harassing in contradiction to the code of civility defined in RRR. If the deliberate use of anonymity or pseudonymity in electronic communication is for fraudulent purposes or accomplished with the intent to harass another, misrepresent oneself as another, or any other behavior in conflict with RRR, it will be considered a serious transgression.

Surveillance cameras and other such devices should not be used in places or ways that violate a reasonable expectation of privacy on the part of those whose activities are to be monitored or recorded. Locker rooms, restrooms, personal residences or dormitory rooms are some of the places where persons reasonably have an expectation of privacy, and in which adequate notice and consent of the subject(s) should precede the use of any photographic or sound recording device. Capture and dissemination of images and sounds in such situations without such notice and consent of the subject(s) is disrespectful of their rights and may violate University policy or the law.