Posted on 06/18/2008 1:37:04 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN FRANCISCO -- An employer has no right to read an employee's text messages without the worker's knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today.
The court's unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario Police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city's service provider and the city and Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches.
Although the city had informed employees that it might monitor e-mails, the informal policy was that text messages sent over city-owned pagers would not be monitored for content, the court said. If an employee exceeded the city's limit on text messages, the employee had to pay the "overage" charges.
In August 2002, Quon and another officer exceeded the 25,000-character limit for texting. The police chief ordered a subordinate to obtain transcripts of the officers' text messages to determine whether the pagers were being used purely for work purposes.
The provider, Arch Wireless, sent the department transcripts of the messages. The city determined that many of Quon's messages were personal, and several were sexually explicit.
Your Vote
Should employees be allowed to read the text message of employees?
No way! Invasion of privacy. Yes. That's fair game. Only if the employer owns the cellphone. The court found that Arch Wireless violated the federal Stored Communications Act, which prohibits providers from divulging the contents of any communication which is maintained on the service.
Quon and the other plaintiffs had a reasonable expectation that their messages stored on the service provider's network were private, the court found.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
ML/NJ
Texting has become part of the instant gratification craze. I hate it. My wife gets mad because I refuse to text.
Since my wife is a teacher and cannot answer the phone while lecturing, text messages are appropriate for those occassions when I need an immediate answer for something, but it is not enough of an emergency to call the school office to have her paged to the phone. However, we do not abuse the technology. Our texting is under 10 messages a month.
Good court decision.
Instant messaging - a bit different from text messaging, is a vital part of my company. I would say more work gets done through that route than email or phone calls.
That’s an absolutely asinine ruling. A company has a right to company funded email but not company funded text messaging? There is almost no technical difference between the two. I hope this makes it through the full 9th circuit so they can get smacked upside the head by the SC yet again. Then again with Kennedy, who the heck knows? He might have the wrong bagel for breakfast and decide that texting on company equipment is a fundamental god given right.
So I am assuming from your post that you don’t wear any pants?
jk
fwiw .. the comments below the LAT article discuss potentialities and what has already been ruled on and such.. this one will likely go to the SC eventually like almost everything these days that the 9th touches..
I don’t know if you followed the case of the government official who is mayor of Detroit - Kwame Kilpatrick. He is in a text message scandal currently. I wonder how decisions like this will affect a situation like that whereby evidence of misdeeds was culled from text messages in part?
I’ve never been a big fan of companies being able to access employee communications. If an employee is suspected of industrial espionage, contact the police. If he is spending too much time on texting or emails, can his ass.
On my computer at work, a box pops up everytime I boot up basically stating that they reserve the right to monitor all types of traffic at anytime. By using their computer, you’re consenting. Period.
‘The government is the only party that my not conduct “unreasonable searches”’
Since what the government was searching was the property of said government, the service funded by taxpayer money and conveyed to the employee as a tool of employment, there is NO “unreasonable search” here.
ML/NJ
“I said I didn’t agree with the decision.”
Yeah, I know but my comment was about the “unreasonable search” part, key word being “unreasonable”. It is not unreasonable for the owner of a communications device, used for his business purposes, to monitor said device. I especially think that is so when it is being paid for with taxpayer money.
I have driven many a government vehicle. While a cop couldn’t search one without just cause or permission, the entity I worked for could search it at will.
Does this apply to RIM NOC’s (network operating center) and the new APPLE corporate Push NOC system?
I was reading through the new IPhone 2.0 NOC articles, there is now no differentiation made between text messages and emails on the IPhone NOC systems. (Grumble, partly to force AT&T customers to buy the higher cost service data plans)
And the NOC will be deployable as a separate server behind corporate firewalls.
So, this ruling is already outdated and incomprehensible.
I find it strange that the employer is liable for anything done by the employee through his work email account (thus the regulations on what the employer has to archive), and I’d bet that’s true for the company phone too. If the company is liable, surely they have the right to monitor what goes on to prevent any criminal activity.
Only because of a stupid policy.
Although the city had informed employees that it might monitor e-mails, the informal policy was that text messages sent over city-owned pagers would not be monitored for content, the court said. If an employee exceeded the city's limit on text messages, the employee had to pay the "overage" charges.
City owned pagers should be used for city business only. I would expect that the rules on retention of email would apply also to instant messaging for any private company caught in a lawsuit. If you are liable for the content, you should be allowed to monitor.
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