Federal court restricts access to employee e-mail
June 26, 2008 by Jim GiulianoPosted in: Communication, Discipline, Employment law, Free speech, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Records documentation
A new federal court ruling warns some employers that there’s no more “open season” on accessing employees’ e-mail.
The warning came in a case involved the city of Ontario, CA, which took disciplinary action against an employee who was charged with using the employer e-mail system to send and receive sexually explicit material.
The employer had collected the damning e-mails and presented them as evidence to support the discipline.
However, the employee found a loophole in previous rulings that said employers owned any e-mails sent and received on the employer’s system: The system wasn’t owned by the employer; it was operated by an outside contractor.
So, even though the employer paid a fee for the system, the court said, it didn’t own the system, meaning all e-mails on the system had 4th Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure and such e-mails are protected by the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA), which prohibits providers from divulging the contents of any communication that is maintained on the service unless the request is accompanied by search a warrant.
The research firm Radicati Group says about 28% of employers use an outside vendor for e-mail and are subject to the access restrictions cited in the 4th Amendment and the SCA.
Tags: e-mail, SCA, stored communications act
June 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
how do you define “ownership” of the e-mail account? as example: If I own the domain name , i.e, hrmorning.com, and issue /cancel/manage each e-mail account/ am I the owner?
Please notice that each e-mail systems requires a vast set of technical steps in which each part is owned and oprated by differente entities. As example; inernet provider, host and even power company.
July 8th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
What is the best way or best maybe on e good book to study for PHR. ? I recently took it and did not see anything from the book or tests as far as the same wording from the book. PLease give suggestion so next time i know what to do.
Thanks
January 19th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
If you have the opportunity to take a class that goes over all of the material… do so! I found that in the class environment it help me gain knowledge I didn’t read. Even then it was still very difficult and you have to look at it as no being logical but knowledged based.
Good Luck!!
Kim
July 14th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Let’s see now, does that mean that any policies that include “shall not …… on the company’s premises” is invalid if the facility is not owned outright by the employer? And would those rules about what you can and cannot do with a company vehicle apply to leased cars/trucks. Looks like you need to add “owned, leased or provided by “to such policies. This from a court system that used to lecture us about the “Intent” of the law vs the letter of the law.
September 10th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
This case involves a municipality. My understanding is that employee of a private company do not have 4th amendment rights in the workplace. Correct?