STUDENT EMAIL accounts could soon be outsourced to a private company, if a new trial is successful.
Student Direct has learned that the University is planning to trial the use of Googlemail and Hotmail as providers for the email system, replacing the current internally administrated 'Webmail' server.
The idea is proving controversial, amidst concerns over privacy issues.
Postgraduate student Justine Hall has spoken out against the proposed move, commenting: "Although many students like Google and use it anyway for email, they are very lax with privacy – they openly admit that they scan people's emails, and can allow many different groups to access your email.
"Under the US Patriot Act they can read your emails and prevent you from entering their country just because of something you have in your email inbox.
"Students are forced to use their university email for any university based correspondence, so anyone researching, investigating, or even with a general interest in anything the USA deems to be 'dangerous' could be barred from the USA and possibly investigated further."
The move has also been condemned by student groups as another example of the encroaching corporatisation of the University, and of plans being formulated without considering student interests.
A spokesman for The University of Manchester said that plans were in their early stages, and that nothing had been decided as of yet.
He added: "We are always looking at ways to improve our email service, so we are planning to offer test accounts to around 500 students of different systems, in order to get their feedback.
"However, no decisions will be made until we have consulted further with our student users."
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