Data Security & Privacy

Supreme Court to Hear Employee Texting Case

 
It has been reported by The Associated Press that the Supreme Court of the United States will hear the case of City of Ontario v. Quon.  This case has huge implications for how far a government employer can go to examine workplace text messages that are private in nature by an employee.  Male and female police officers for Ontario, CA, were suspended after they had sent salacious text messages from a city issued pager.  According to the news article, the rules surrounding "workplace communication in the digital age are pretty fuzzy; so fuzzy, in fact, that we still largely rely on parts of a federal lawenacted in 1986 — back when fax machines were all the rage — to govern our privacy on technologies we use today. Calling someone on the phone or sending them postal mail isn’t remotely the same as sending a text or an email, so as technology develops, so must the laws that protect the privacy of our communication."
 
The police offers sued the City of Ontario claiming that their 4th Amendment Rights, under the U.S. Constitution, were violated when they were summarily suspended for sending the text messages.  They lost in district court, but the case was sent to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in California, where the case was overturned.  Now the Supreme Court will be handed the task of determining whether a government employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy when they send personal communications over government-issued technology.
 
To read the news report, please click here:  High Court Goes High Tech: Justices to Hear Employee Texting Case
 
 

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