Privacy Question

[ivanl3]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ

Not sure where this question should be posted.....

Can a cellular phone company legally monitor the use of an employee owned cell phone and take disciplinary action against an employee based on its findings? This is not a company issued cell phone. It is a cell phone purchased and owned by the employee. The employee also pays for the monthly service for the phone, although he does receive an employee discount for the monthly service charges. The employee did not give the company permission to monitor his usage.

There are no court orders, etc, involved in this scenario. In this scenario, the company is doing this monitoring on their own without any govt involvement.

If this is illegal, what specific law is being broke.

Are the answers to these questions any different in PA than NJ?

 

[justalayman]

just how is the company monitoring your phone call?

 

[sandyclaus]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ

Not sure where this question should be posted.....

Can a cellular phone company legally monitor the use of an employee owned cell phone and take disciplinary action against an employee based on its findings? This is not a company issued cell phone. It is a cell phone purchased and owned by the employee. The employee also pays for the monthly service for the phone, although he does receive an employee discount for the monthly service charges. The employee did not give the company permission to monitor his usage.

There are no court orders, etc, involved in this scenario. In this scenario, the company is doing this monitoring on their own without any govt involvement.

If this is illegal, what specific law is being broke.

Are the answers to these questions any different in PA than NJ?

just how is the company monitoring your phone call?

I suspect the monitoring actually involves how much the cell phone is being used on the company premises during company time.

An employer can discipline you if they feel that you are spending too much on your phone during work hours. Your personal phone calls need to be taking place off-site and not on company time unless it's an emergency. Otherwise, while you see it at a device for communication, they are seeing it for what it is - a distraction that you don't need, and that they don't need to pay you for.

You're lucky that the employer allows you to carry your cell phone at all, turned on, while you're at work. Some employers prohibit them on the company premises entirely.

 

[swalsh411]

You make it sound like your calls are being tapped. I find that very hard to believe. What's more believable is that you are being told you are spending too much time on your phone during working hours.

There is no law that says an employer must allow you to use your phone during breaks if that is what you are wondering.

 

[ivanl3]

just how is the company monitoring your phone call?

The issue is not phone calls. It is texts, MMS (picture messaging), Internet usage (adult content), etc.. They are able to do this by analyzing that data carried over their commercial network.

Are they legally allowed to monitor (and take action on) this activity? Again, the activity is conducted on a personal (employee owned) communication device in which the employer is the cellular carrier and thus has access to the information. The employee also pays all the monthly service fees, etc..

 

[ivanl3]

I suspect the monitoring actually involves how much the cell phone is being used on the company premises during company time.
An employer can discipline you if they feel that you are spending too much on your phone during work hours. Your personal phone calls need to be taking place off-site and not on company time unless it's an emergency. Otherwise, while you see it at a device for communication, they are seeing it for what it is - a distraction that you don't need, and that they don't need to pay you for.

You're lucky that the employer allows you to carry your cell phone at all, turned on, while you're at work. Some employers prohibit them on the company premises entirely.

Thanks for the lecture based on incorrect assumptions. Care to answer the direct question that was posed in the original post?

 

[justalayman]

How is your employer doing this?


For your argument to be valid, you would have to be working for a corporate store. Many of the cell stores are independent of the corporation they are selling services for. As an example; in my area, there are about a dozen stores that sell Sprint services. Of those dozen or so stores, only 1 of them is a corporate owned store. So, do you work for a corporate owned store?

 

[justalayman]

then next, are you claiming this is happening at the store?

 

[quincy]

Thanks for the lecture based on incorrect assumptions. Care to answer the direct question that was posed in the original post?

Your posting history on this forum is a bit interesting, ivanl3.

To answer the questions in your original post:

There may be nothing illegal that the company is doing, therefore, there may be no law that is being broken, in PA, NJ or elsewhere.

It could be that the adult content you were viewing or the texts and picture messages you were viewing/sending raised some red flags (perhaps these were reported by another employee or a recipient of the messages).

What you were doing with your phone could have been in violation of company policy.

 

[ivanl3]

You make it sound like your calls are being tapped. I find that very hard to believe. What's more believable is that you are being told you are spending too much time on your phone during working hours.

There is no law that says an employer must allow you to use your phone during breaks if that is what you are wondering.

I never said anything about calls.



No, I was not wondering if there is a law that says an employer must allow you to use your phone during breaks.

What I was wondering was spelled out directly in my original post.

Your other comment about what is more believable is irrelevant to the (rather simple) question I posed. Perhaps the answer to my question is not simple, I honestly don't know, that's why I asked it. But let's all still try to stay on topic.

And oh, BTW, I never said any of this actually happened. I simply asked a legal question in a legal forum. Never said there was an actual specific case in which this was happening.

 

[ivanl3]

There may be nothing illegal that your employer is doing, therefore, there may be no law that is being broken.

You say "may". How can I found out if there is or isn't?

It could be that the adult content you were viewing or the picture messages you were viewing/sending raised some flags. These could have been in violation of phone company policy.

The content is not in violation of the phone company policy.

Also, please don't assume I was doing anything. I never said that I did anything. All I did was ask a legal question.

 

[quincy]

The issue is not phone calls. It is texts, MMS (picture messaging), Internet usage (adult content), etc.. They are able to do this by analyzing that data carried over their commercial network.

Are they legally allowed to monitor (and take action on) this activity? Again, the activity is conducted on a personal (employee owned) communication device in which the employer is the cellular carrier and thus has access to the information. The employee also pays all the monthly service fees, etc..

So it is not your texts, picture messaging and adult content internet usage you suspect are being monitored?

Then what exactly are you being disciplined for?

Or are you just posting a hypothetical because you are curious about privacy laws?

 

[ivanl3]

How is your employer doing this?


For your argument to be valid, you would have to be working for a corporate store. Many of the cell stores are independent of the corporation they are selling services for. As an example; in my area, there are about a dozen stores that sell Sprint services. Of those dozen or so stores, only 1 of them is a corporate owned store. So, do you work for a corporate owned store?

Who said anything about a store?

I think the question I posed was pretty clear.

Quincy is the only one who answered it and his answer was basically that he did not know --- which is fine. Just wondering if anyone else knows if there is a law that prohibits cell phone companies from monitoring (and taking action on) the use of their employees personally owned devices.

 

[ivanl3]

So it is not

Or are you just posting a hypothetical because you are curious about the privacy laws involved?

Correct. Well, privacy laws and employment laws. Meaning, theoretically, it could be legal to monitor and illegal to take action on what was observed. I don't know that to be the case. But I see them as potentially different answers.

 

[justalayman]

ivanl3;3209319]Who said anything about a store?

I think the question I posed was pretty clear.

Quincy is the only one who answered it and his answer was basically that he did not know --- which is fine. Just wondering if anyone else knows if there is a law that prohibits cell phone companies from monitoring (and taking action on) the use of their employees personally owned devices.[/QUOTE]


no, the post was not clear.



Looking over your shoulder is monitoring

watching you from afar is monitoring

using electronic means to intercept your call is monitoring


each of those require different answers


do I really need to go on?