Texting at work not protected by law, says Supreme Court

Many people have tried texting while at work. The technology is ubiquitous in developed nations, and because many people spend the majority of their waking lives in the workplace, it stands to reason that there will be quite a few occasions when workers resort to texting at work, regardless of employer policy. The question of whether these communications are automatically private has been addressed by the Supreme Court in the California City of Ontario vs. Quon decision, reports the Los Angeles Times.

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Texting at work – Understand your employer’s policy

Police Sgt. Jeff Quon sent sensitive personal messages via a work pager, and later attempted to invoke his Fourth Amendment right to protection against an illegal search and seizure when his superiors accessed the texting at work evidence. The Supreme Court ruled with a 9-0 in favor of the Ontario Police chief, claiming that since there was reason to believe a work policy was being violated, his search of Jeff Quon’s texts did not violate Quon’s constitutional rights. Hence, the court ruled that the search was reasonable.

Sgt. Jeff Quon could lose a lot

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, a police sergeant earns an average of $50,000 per year, although the figure can be higher depending upon experience, locality and other factors. If Sgt. Jeff Quon happened to be placed on some manner of unpaid leave for his texting at work escapades, he’d probably end up seeking sources of fast cash. As it stands, he had already won an appeal against the Ontario Police Department via the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, writes the Times. But the Supreme Court overturned the decision.

Justice Anthony Kennedy said the search had ‘a legitimate work-related purpose’

Arch Wireless, the contractor that handled the Ontario Police Department’s text paging system, was subpoenaed to release Sgt. Quon’s racy personal messages to his wife and a girlfriend, according to the L.A. Times. Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court ruled that the search was justified on work-related grounds and was not unreasonable. Interestingly, Quon’s immediate supervisor had told him that he could use the pager for personal messages as long as he was willing to pay all of the extra fees. Yet the nature of said personal messages by Jeff Quon warranted there to be some kind of investigation, in the Supreme Court’s view.

City of Ontario vs. Quon is reportedly the first case on record to involve privacy issues regarding texting at work with any kind of employee-issued device.

More information on this topic

Los Angeles Times

latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-worker-texting-20100618,0,7772406.story

Bureau of Labor Statistics

bls.gov/oco/ocos160.htm

Other examples of inappropriate texting at work: (WARNING: Some inappropriate language can be heard)

History of the Predictive Text Swearing

youtube.com/watch?v=6hcoT6yxFoU