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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Are text messages sent on company devices private?

Please click onto the COMMENTS for the story.

posted by Bob at Tuesday, December 15, 2009

7 Comments:

Anonymous Tribune said...

The Supreme Court will decide what protections the Fourth Amendment provides employees.

By ROBERT BARNES, Washington Post

Last update: December 14, 2009 - 9:22 PM

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court will decide whether employees have an expectation of privacy for the text messages they send on devices owned by their employers.

The case the court accepted Monday involves public employees, but a broadly written decision could hold a blueprint for private-workplace rules in a world in which communication via computers, e-mail and text messages plays a large role.

A federal appeals court in California decided that a police officer in the city of Ontario had a right to privacy regarding the texts he sent on his department-issued pager, even though his chief discovered that some of them were sexually explicit messages to his girlfriend. That court said the chief's decision to read the messages without a suspicion of wrongdoing on the part of the officer violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

The ruling, by a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, was the first of its kind, and the judges acknowledged that the "recently minted standard of electronic communication ... opens a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence."

Most employers routinely tell their workers that they have no expectation of privacy when it comes to e-mail and other communications that involve company equipment, and the city of Ontario is no different. It "reserves the right to monitor and log all network activity, including e-mail and Internet use, with or without notice."

But Jeff Quon, the police officer in the case, said the department sent a different message when it handed out pagers to SWAT team members. The department said that the devices were limited to 25,000 characters each month but that officers also using them for personal purposes could pay for any overage charges.

When the police chief wondered whether the devices were being used mostly for personal messages, the company that provided the texting service turned over transcripts. They showed that a large portion of Quon's messages were personal and many of them were sexually explicit.
Quon and three others sued after they learned that their messages had been read.

Judge Kim McLean Wardlaw wrote the circuit court's opinion supporting Quon. She said that the "extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic communications in the Internet age is an open question." But she and two other judges also said the department's informal policy that personal messages were allowed on the devices meant Quon "had a reasonable expectation of privacy."

7:47 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

To answer the topic question, in general, no.

As the article states most employers routinely tell their workers that they have no expectation of privacy when it comes to e-mail and other communications that involve company equipment.

This specific case is different as that particular department gave the option of using the device for personal use. That personal usage carries the expectation of some degree of privacy.

Its the same category as those companies that reimburse employees for use of their personal equipment.


Eric

10:01 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The other issue is the lack of class of the chief who reads the email and doesn't respect the officer's privacy after the fact.

I think that is what is tough on this. It is the department's device but they allow you to also use it personal use.

I think the department has the right to review the info on it, because it is theirs but has the requirement to respect your right to privacy of your personal messages if they are not criminal.

So... I think the court is going to have a hard time with this one.

JMONTOMEPPOF

Chuck Repke

9:15 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A better question is "why, and under whose authority do public employees ever receive publicly owned equipment for personal use?"

11:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A second question might be "Why are police departments hiring people stupid enough to believe that anything they do electronically is in any way likely to remain private?"

11:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On the cell phone issue, the reason you may be OK with an employee using it for personal use is because they may take less "breaks" to go somewhere to use a phone if they could just call out on the company cell phone. So, texting is seen as the same thing, a quick text to the wife to ask what do we need at the grocery store might be better than to have the car go off duty for tweny minutes to have the cop on break to use a phone. And, I can't imagine that it would be a smart idea for the cop to have two phones in his pocket while on duty.

So, I know it is hard for some on the right to get their head around it but the best practices of governments is often when they run like a business. So, what business would still say you can never use the cell phone for a personal call and not think it was not hurting productivity?

JMONTOMEPPOF

Chuck Repke

8:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"So, what business would still say you can never use the cell phone for a personal call and not think it was not hurting productivity?"

I have a company issued cell phone, Chuck. It's for business calls; they made that clear when they gave it to me.

And although they didn't say it, I assume that if I'm using any cell phone to the point it is effecting my productivity, they'll take their cell phone back right after I'm fired.

10:49 AM  

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