A just-completed survey of more than 200 board members at publicly traded companies in the U.S. showed 73 percent saying they believe a company chairman should be empowered to use any legally available means to identify the source of a confidential leak at the board level.

About 71 percent feel it was okay for a chairman to review a board member's e-mails or other confidential data stored on company computers. About 50 percent said that obtaining and reviewing telephone records of individuals is okay so long as pretexting -- the method used in the HP probe -- is not illegal. And over half of those who responded to the survey find it permissible to "tail" or follow individuals inside and outside the company.

The survey was conducted by Elk Rapids, Mich.-based think tank Ponemon Institute LLC after news of the HP scandal broke earlier this month. The results are based on information gathered via phone from 226 individuals who serve on corporate boards at U.S. companies. Larry Ponemon, who runs the institute, is a Computerworld columnist.

"It's somewhat surprising and distressing that such a high percentage of board members would be okay with this," said Alan Chapell, a New York-based research fellow on Ponemon Institute's Responsible Information Management Council. "It sounds like in this instance, corporate integrity trumps privacy -- at least as it pertains to board members."

In the long term, such attitudes could affect the willingness of individuals to sit on corporate boards, Chapell cautioned. And it also raises some troubling questions about whether such practices could extend to employees as well.