Can Your Boss Read Your Text Messages
Content
Can Your Boss Read Your Text Messages?
By AllBusiness Editors | In: Finance
Do you use a company issued pager or cell phone for personal
communications? Perhaps you send a text message to a spouse or
significant other? If so, do you expect those communications to be
private? If you do, you might be interested in what the U.S. Supreme Court
had to say about the subject yesterday.
The case before them involved an officer, Sgt. Quon, a member of a
California police department SWAT team who had been issued a department
pager with texting capabilities. Although the department had been told up
front not to expect privacy when using the equipment, they were also told
that they could use them occasionally for personal use.
When employees exceeded their monthly allotment of allowed text
messages the department would require them to pony up and pay the
difference. The officer at the center of this case did exceed his limit
repeatedly and after a while his supervisors got tired of chasing down the
overage fees. They began to wonder whether the limit for text messages
had been set too low. So the chief decided to audit the text message records
and requested the text service to provide the necessary information.
When the department reviewed records for one month of Sgt. Quon’s on-duty
texting activity they discovered 400 of his 456 on-duty texts were of a highly
personal nature — sexually explicit messages sent to his wife and his
mistress. Of course Sgt. Quon was confronted about the finding and the
lawsuit that followed suggests the meeting didn’t go so well.
Sgt. Quon claimed the police department had violated his Fourth
Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, among other
things. It’s an interesting question that took numerous twists and turns as it
went up the judicial ladder.
The federal trial court held that Sgt. Quon did have an expectation of privacy
in his personal messages, but that the City’s actions were defensible
because they were for a legitimate business purpose. The 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed the lower court. In their view the search may have been
legitimate, but they thought the police chief should have used less intrusive
means to determine usage rates. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed
the 9th Circuit and agreed with the lower court.
It is a narrowly written opinion and some lawyers are reluctant to speculate
about what the decision means for private sector employers and
employees. Frankly, I don’t think it’s that difficult.
On the one hand is the question of whether the employer had a right to
search their own equipment. Here the Court’s opinion makes clear that the
search was justified because it was for a legitimate business reason. That’s
the answer – it must be for a legitimate business reason – not nosing around
for the fun of it. What is legitimate will depend on the facts of each case.
Granted the employer’s permission to allow “some” personal use could
under some circumstances trigger an expectation of privacy. An example
would be an employee having a privileged conversation with their attorney
over their personal e-mail account but is being accessed from their office and
transmitted through company servers.
But here, the number of text messages was directly related to the cost issue
and cost, of course costs go to the heart of legitimate financial business
interest.
Interestingly, none of the legal reports I’ve seen so far about this case tell us
what happened to the wife and the mistress. Bet Sgt. Quon had some
explaining to do. It would seem to me that if you want to keep the mistress
thing quiet it’s not too smart to correspond with her using a communications
device that you don’t own or control 100%.
What all this means for employees is crystal clear. If you really want to keep
something private then don’t use business resources or assets to conduct
your personal business. Keep it separate.
That’s why my number one rule for avoiding smoking gun documents is to
always stick to company business when wearing your business hat or using
business resources.
By AllBusiness Editors | In: Finance
Do you use a company issued pager or cell phone for personal
communications? Perhaps you send a text message to a spouse or
significant other? If so, do you expect those communications to be
private? If you do, you might be interested in what the U.S. Supreme Court
had to say about the subject yesterday.
The case before them involved an officer, Sgt. Quon, a member of a
California police department SWAT team who had been issued a department
pager with texting capabilities. Although the department had been told up
front not to expect privacy when using the equipment, they were also told
that they could use them occasionally for personal use.
When employees exceeded their monthly allotment of allowed text
messages the department would require them to pony up and pay the
difference. The officer at the center of this case did exceed his limit
repeatedly and after a while his supervisors got tired of chasing down the
overage fees. They began to wonder whether the limit for text messages
had been set too low. So the chief decided to audit the text message records
and requested the text service to provide the necessary information.
When the department reviewed records for one month of Sgt. Quon’s on-duty
texting activity they discovered 400 of his 456 on-duty texts were of a highly
personal nature — sexually explicit messages sent to his wife and his
mistress. Of course Sgt. Quon was confronted about the finding and the
lawsuit that followed suggests the meeting didn’t go so well.
Sgt. Quon claimed the police department had violated his Fourth
Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, among other
things. It’s an interesting question that took numerous twists and turns as it
went up the judicial ladder.
The federal trial court held that Sgt. Quon did have an expectation of privacy
in his personal messages, but that the City’s actions were defensible
because they were for a legitimate business purpose. The 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals reversed the lower court. In their view the search may have been
legitimate, but they thought the police chief should have used less intrusive
means to determine usage rates. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed
the 9th Circuit and agreed with the lower court.
It is a narrowly written opinion and some lawyers are reluctant to speculate
about what the decision means for private sector employers and
employees. Frankly, I don’t think it’s that difficult.
On the one hand is the question of whether the employer had a right to
search their own equipment. Here the Court’s opinion makes clear that the
search was justified because it was for a legitimate business reason. That’s
the answer – it must be for a legitimate business reason – not nosing around
for the fun of it. What is legitimate will depend on the facts of each case.
Granted the employer’s permission to allow “some” personal use could
under some circumstances trigger an expectation of privacy. An example
would be an employee having a privileged conversation with their attorney
over their personal e-mail account but is being accessed from their office and
transmitted through company servers.
But here, the number of text messages was directly related to the cost issue
and cost, of course costs go to the heart of legitimate financial business
interest.
Interestingly, none of the legal reports I’ve seen so far about this case tell us
what happened to the wife and the mistress. Bet Sgt. Quon had some
explaining to do. It would seem to me that if you want to keep the mistress
thing quiet it’s not too smart to correspond with her using a communications
device that you don’t own or control 100%.
What all this means for employees is crystal clear. If you really want to keep
something private then don’t use business resources or assets to conduct
your personal business. Keep it separate.
That’s why my number one rule for avoiding smoking gun documents is to
always stick to company business when wearing your business hat or using
business resources.
