The Supreme Court last week agreed to decide whether a California police department violated the privacy rights of an employee police officer by reading sexually-explicit text messages on the officer’s employer-issued pager. The case, Quon v. Arch Wireless Operating Company, is on appeal from the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that in certain circumstances a public employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in personal text messages -- even when those messages are sent on a device owned and provided by the employer. The decision is directly at odds with current employee privacy law, which generally holds that employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy in electronic communications on employer-provided electronic devices, and it adds to the list of headaches for employers adjusting to the exploding use of instant messaging in the workplace.
Continue Reading...