Supreme Court Mulls Worker's Privacy Rights Over Text Messages

December 15, 2009

Ontario, California - After a federal appellate court has ruled that a city police officer has a right of privacy over the personal text messages he sent on his department-issued pager, the US Supreme Court is reviewing this employment issue and hope to come up with a clear definition of privacy rights in using employer-provided electronic devices.

While most public and private employers include a provision in the employment contract that will allow them to access messages from company-provided electronic devices, this practice may be exploited to the extent that it becomes intrusive to workers, some lawyers said.

The controversial employment issue started when Ontario’s chief of police read the messages from the department-issued pagers and sent the transcript, provided by the communication company Arch Wireless, to three SWAT team members, including Sgt. Jeff Quon who was found to be sending sexually explicit messages to his girlfriend.

Quon and the other two officers said the department told them that they can use their pagers to send 25,000 characters each month for free; but if they exceed this limit through personal use, they will pay for any overage charge.

In 2004, the three officers sued the city police department for violating their privacy rights.

Last year, the court of appeal in San Francisco ruled in favor of the three officers, saying that the “plaintiffs had been reasonable to assume that private messaging was allowed since they were paying for the overages beyond the 25,000-character monthly text limit.”