Next week the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a question near and dear to digitally proficient texters: whether their personal messages are private when transmitted over an electronic device supplied by an employer."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125998549
Most of us understand that when your employer gives you something to use, its still theirs, and a certain level of "acceptable behavior" comes with the privilege of using said allowance. HOWEVER, we have all heard about people downloading explicit material at work, engaging in illicit chat room conversations on company laptops, and making long-distance phone calls to your family in Japan on the company's dime.
With this context in mind, the article linked above describes a situation involving cellular phones distributed to police officers in Ontario, California. When the phones were distributed to police officers, the lieutenant responsible for the equipment informed the users that the message content was private, and officers would be required to pay out of pocket for messages exceeding the 25,000 character limit per month.
A problem arose however, when officers DID exceed the limit, and the lieutenant described feeling like a "bill collector". He grew weary of this responsibility, and when he requested transcripts of the message content being transmitted by his officers, he was surprised to find explicit language being used between one particular officer, his estranged ex-wife, and another police officer.
I circle back now to my first point. Most of us understand that this kind of behavior is not acceptable on company time, and especially with company money. However, the officer and others who allegedly sent the "sexy" text messages sued the department for breaking their privacy rights.
If this situation only involved police issued equipment, then I'd probably side with the department on this one. HOWEVER it doesn't, as the estranged ex-wife DOES NOT use a department issued phone. What about her privacy rights?
George Washington University professor Orin Kerr provides the following insight:
"Does the government violate your rights when they take those messages off the server, even though you're not the government employee?" asks George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. "And what does that mean for the rest of us, who do have privacy rights, when the government wants to get copies of those communications?"
If this were an isolated case without possible influence on the rest of the country, that would be fine. However this same kind of situation will inevitably continue to arise with other agencies, organizations, private companies and the like. What is reasonable privacy? What sort of protections can citizens and employees expect regarding their personal lives? What will prevent the government or others from getting into your "dirty little secrets"?
I submit the following guidelines: WATCH YOUR BACK JACK. Its sort of like the advice you get from an old sage like your grandparents, "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all". Obviously the issue only came to trial because of the DISCRETION used by police administrators to view transcripts of transmitted messages.
Discretion, its all around us!
This should also stand as a reminder that just because you think something is private doesn't mean it is. People tend to forget that messages like texts, and e-mails tend to linger around a great deal longer then you would think. All it takes is someone with suspicions and a warrant to recover your text messages to start digging through what you sent to your friends.
I find this very interesting. I would think that people would realize the appropriateness of using a phone that was given out by their employer. Most people these days have their own phones, so couldn't they wait until they are off the clock to use the phones? I believe when you are given a phone through your job, they should go over the appropriate conduct that should be used with the phone. However, when it comes to personal phones, I believe people should have privacy.
I too found this article interesting. I think this is a new issue that has arose with technology use increases outside of company use and into personal use. Personally I think that if a company is paying for your phone usage or the company gave you the phone i feel it is not 100 percent private. For people who have hire ranking jobs tend to have phone paid for by the company and the phones activity is information that is available to the company. In this situation i think that the phone does have a right to be searched... however I do not think that the other persons information (text message or any information on that phone) should be public, it should remain private.
This is a relatively interesting case, but something most people probably would not have a problem with. I think most of us are smart enough to not use company property for our own personal and awkward text messages or other communication. However, to answer to question if the person, the wife in this case, who sends responses to the company phone, should have their privacy protected, I think they should in this situation. These messages were supposed to be the responsibility of the employee, not the employer. They were allowed to pay for the extra text messages. The officer should not even have had these texts read by the employer, unless they had their permission. (Which I do not think they did) But, in the future, these people should never, ever send texts like this. Even if you are not aware that the person you are texting is on a company phone, DO NOT send the text. Ask to talk on a private line and make sure that there will be no chance. You take the chance if you are using technology in this way. If the Supreme Court found someone was responsible even if they did not know that there was a company phone involved, I would not be too disappointed. Of course, right now I am on the outside, I am sure if I was in the opposite situation, I would disagree with myself. Is that like the attribution theory or something?
This is a great article for discussing the relationship between psychology and law. I believe psychology can offer a lot in regards to explaining several of the things which have gone wrong here.
It is always difficult to separate work and personal life. After all we only live one life. However, more and more we are being required to literally become two people. When at home we are told not to bring our work home with us, not let the stress of deadlines, pay-raises, promotions, office politics, etc., affect our home life. Similarly we are to check our personal lives at the door. If your wife has a miscarriage, your boyfriend or husband leaves you, your dog dies, child is in a car accident, ran out of milk for your morning cereal, all of it is to be left at home.
With development in communication technology the lines between work and home blur more and more. It’s easier to forget about your husband when you can’t talk to him for 8 hours on your shift, but when they can continue to communicate with you 24 hours a day through email or phones it becomes more difficult. If it is demonstrated that the Lt. did in fact say they could use them for personal use than this article is considerably less interesting. I would argue however, that even if they were consistently told that they would not be private the department was asking something it should have known was not possible.
It would be similar to Dr. MacLin giving us all access to her copy of the grade book but telling us we shouldn’t look at other people’s grades, or change any of the grades. Is it wrong if we do those things? You betcha. Is it smart for her to give us access like that? Absolutely not. I would be interested to know if the officers could also have their own cell phones on duty with them. Basically, to what extent is the department “daring” these officers to overstep their boundaries and mix personal and work life. Given that most people are not classically trained ethicists truly being able to differentiate between right and wrong in cases such as this become more and more difficult. Not all wrong’s are the same, stealing a paperclip is not taking the company car for a trip to Mexico, but where is the line?
I would argue that police officers do not need cell phones for their job. They are all connected via radio so I see little reason for them to need to make any phone calls except when at the police department, and when they are there they can use the department phones. That being said, if they are given phones it should be stated up front that all calls and texts are automatically saved and printed to be placed in the file of whatever case they pertain too, since they are exclusively work phones. This would eliminate any and all problems perminately. There would be no blurred line. Psychology tells us that our brains become increasingly more prone to error the more ambiguous the situation is.
The important legal points in this case are whether the cops were lead to believe they were for personal use and under what circumstances examining the texts is acceptable. These I argue are not difficult questions to answer, legally or ethically. They are only made difficult by way of the police departments hasty and not well thought through policy of providing cell phones to its officers and not properly documenting protocols for their use. There should be a very strict policy against using any type of personal device during company time. Using personal email and a cell phone during company time ought to bring with them punishments in their own right, but looking through the texts or emails is unreasonable. Similarly all texts, voicemails, emails, etc., made through company emails, and phones ought to be immediately transcribed, saved, and printed for inclusion in the case to which they pertain.
We need to recognize that the internet and cell phone’s are technologies which blur the lines between our personal and occupational lives. Strict protocols need to be in place in order to avoid the potential problems associated with this. All work email ought to be through a separate webpage that is subject to review, similarly all phone and texting ought to be down exclusively through a work phone with the same guidelines.