According to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, your boss has no right to read your text messages, even if s/he pays for your phone. The court's ruling was prompted by a suspicious California police sergeant who wanted to know why his subordinate was breaching his 25,000 character-per-month text limit. The department's wireless provider, Arch Wireless, happily handed over transcripts of the officer's texts, including several sexual messages sent to his wife.
The court held that this was a gross violation of the officer's privacy. Under the ruling, all workers whose email messages are stored by a third-party vendor—which includes all government workers—are protected from unreasonable searches by the fourth amendment. Practically, this means that your boss can't read your text messages without a police warrant.
The court found that Arch Wireless violated the federal Stored Communications Act, which prohibits providers from divulging the contents of any communication that is maintained on the service without a warrant.Text away!"I think right now service providers are going to be a little leery of providing anything to the subscriber because of this case," said John H. Horwitz, who represented Arch Wireless in the case.
The court ruled against the Police Department even though the city had informed employees that it had the right to read e-mails and text messages. The court said that despite the policy, text messages were not monitored for content and employees had an expectation of privacy.
Your boss shouldn't read your text or e-mail messages without an OK, court says [Los Angeles Times]
(Photo: El Tuercas)
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