Invasion of Privacy with Email Monitoring

Country4 · May 2004

Is it unlawful to monitor certain Public employees without their written consent?

deniseE · May 2004

Unlawful? not likely...but you'll want to go back to your email policy and see what it says. Ours states clearly that ee's have no expectation of privacy when communicating on employer provided equipment/facilities.

sonny · May 2004

As does ours. Being a public employee does have its advantages. . .Privacy is not one of them.

System · May 2004

I think you need consent for some types of monitoring but not others. Your policy (and employees' acknowledgement of it) could serve as consent. Since you're public-sector, monitoring might be a "search" under the U.S. Constitution, giving you more hoops to jump through.

I think this is covered in two of our Special Reports - one on the electronic workplace and one on privacy:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/special.shtml[/url]
(free online if you're an Employment Law Letter subscriber).

Hope this helps.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

lnelson · May 2004

As long as you have an E-mail and/or Internet usage policy and the ee's sign an acknowledgement of receipt of the policy you are good to go.

We have a policy stating no expectation of privacy and also everytime ee's log onto their computers in the morning a warning appears outlining the policy.

Country4 · May 2004

The policy we have does not mention anything about privacy/monitoring.

lnelson · May 2004

You need to amend your policy to state that ee should not have any sense of privacy when using company computers. That the company has the right to monitor its equipment at any time.

Simple and straight forward. You can expand to your needs but make sure that when you hand out the policy you have an ackowledgement of receipt specific to this amended policy for the ee's to sign and date as received keep in their HR file.

If you would like a to see our policy & acknowledgement I can e-mail or fax just need your address or number.

Lisa

WT · May 2004

Get a policy out there so employees cannot claim an expectation of privacy. When the issue came up at our workplace, I reminded employees that e-mail has been subject to discovery in many court cases. If what you say on e-mail can subject the employer to liability and cost big money, then how can any employee think it is private and his/hers alone?

coloradospecialdistricts · May 2004

Actually there are some additional considerations you should think about. I believe you are in the same Circuit as I am, so the same case law on this topic will affect you. There is case law that suggests that "real time" trapping and monitoring of email communications is illegal (I think as a wiretap?)If your policy allows for access to STORED emails, that is okay, but real time monitoring is NOT, so be sure your IT staff monitors only stored and not real-time communications.

Also, consider that as a public employer you are very likely subject to AZ's public records laws. Email messages are generally considered public records, with some exceptions. Check your state's laws for those exceptions. The public records laws will seriously deteriorate any expectation of privacy your employees may have in their email communications.

Invasion of Privacy with Email Monitoring

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