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If You Want Privacy At Work, Don’t Use Employer’s Technology
By: Donna Ray Berkelhammer. This was posted Friday, June 18th, 2010
Loading ...I recently advised an employee who wanted to start setting up a potentially competing new business before leaving his current job. There were some provisions of his employment contract that applied to the situation. I told him what the letter of the agreement said, and how I thought his employer would interpret it.
“How do I get around it?” he wanted to know.
Along with a lot of other advice regarding not using his current employer’s trade secrets, I told him under no circumstances should he do any outside work during company time, and further, he should not make any new-business calls on his company-provided cell phone or even check Gmail or Yahoo or Hotmail accounts via a company-provided computer, laptop or smartphone. He didn’t want to do anything that would show up on his employer’s radar.
He thought I was being paranoid. Yet, the US Supreme Court ruled yesterday in City of Ontario v. Quon, 08-1332, that it was reasonable in this particular case for a government employer to search the texts on a police-officer’s government-issued pager without violating the employee’s privacy rights.
The specific facts are here or here.
The lesson for employees is that you should not expect privacy on work-issued computers, pagers, smartphones or other devices. The lesson for employers is to have a social media policy and follow it.
If you need assistance with a social media policy, please contact our employment attorneys.
Tags: 08-1332, City of Ontario v. Quon, expectation of privacy, sexting, texting, workplace privacy
This decision is a good argument for bringing new encryption technologies to market. If it’s possible at all, developments in that arena might someday segment the personal realm from the corporate.
While we wait for that day to arrive, if a company lacks an Acceptable Use Policy, can they now just say “audit” and point to this case?
Posted by: Joel | June 22nd, 2010 at 5:42 pmCurrently the law is based on the expectation of privacy. It is murky without an acceptable use policy, although companies have legitimate reasons for controlling their technology (protect bandwidth, prevent viruses and malware, prevent harrassing messages via company email). I advise companies to set policies and to follow them, so that employees are clear on the expectation.
Posted by: Donna Ray Chmura | June 22nd, 2010 at 8:59 pm[...] If You Want Privacy at Work, Don’t Use Employer’s Technology (nclawlife.com) [...]
Posted by: I Know What You Did Last Night: Employer GPS Monitoring | Virginia Workplace Law - Karen Elliott, Managing Editor | February 20th, 2012 at 10:14 pm