Privacy Question

[justalayman]

I'm not sure it would be legal to fire me for what they learned through an illegal action.

this is an absolute: yes, it would be legal to fire you based on what they found even if obtaining the info was illegal.

 

[ivanl3]

again, lack of definition demands the answer to be:

maybe, maybe not

You refuse to define any question to the point that any meaningful answer can be provided. I can give you myriad scenarios where the overly vaguely described situation leads to criminal actions and I can give you myriad scenarios where it would be totally within the law.

Not sure what else you would need to know, but maybe you can answer better if I provide a hypothetical example.

1. John works for a cell phone company.
2. John owns his own personal phone.
3. John buys service for his phone from his employer.
4. John occasionally sends/receives off color or adult oriented texts or visits web sites that contain adult content on his phone.
5. John does not visit these sites or send texts while at work. In fact, John never turns his phone on at work. Never even brings it to the office.
6. John's cell company (his employer) chooses to monitor the usage of his (and all employees) who buy their cell service from them.
7. The company discovers item #4 during this process.
8. The company chooses to discipline John for what they discovered. They claim that these actions violated the company's personal conduct policy.

So, was the monitoring legal? Was the discipline legal?

 

[AnonUserName]

Not sure what else you would need to know, but maybe you can answer better if I provide a hypothetical example.

1. John works for a cell phone company.
2. John owns his own personal phone.
3. John buys service for his phone from his employer.
4. John occasionally sends/receives off color or adult oriented texts or visits web sites that contain adult content on his phone.
5. John does not visit these sites or send texts while at work. In fact, John never turns his phone on at work. Never even brings it to the office.
6. John's cell company (his employer) chooses to monitor the usage of his (and all employees) who buy their cell service from them.
7. The company discovers item #4 during this process.
8. The company chooses to discipline John for what they discovered. They claim that these actions violated the company's personal conduct policy.

So, was the monitoring legal? Was the discipline legal?

In your scenario, has the employer notified employees that they are monitoring cell phone usage?

 

[sandyclaus]

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..

AHA! So you are using company resources on company time for sexting to the people you virtually hook-up with over the company's Wi-Fi network.

My answers remain the same, the only difference being that it's data usage on your employer's Wi-fi access point instead of phone calls. In fact, whatever goes on over their network can be a potential issue for THEM, especially if you are using their data connection to download illegal porn, or malware, or whatever else.

And quite honestly, if you were spending time on my dime to scout out the "flavor of the day" and whack off to porn over MY company's network, I'd take disciplinary action against you too. If you have that much time to be messing around at work and NOT working, you don't need to be wasting my money by getting paid wages while doing it.

 

[ivanl3]

In your scenario, has the employer notified employees that they are monitoring cell phone usage?

No they have not.

 

[ivanl3]

AHA! So you are using company resources on company time for sexting to the people you virtually hook-up with over the company's Wi-Fi network.

My answers remain the same, the only difference being that it's data usage on your employer's Wi-fi access point instead of phone calls. In fact, whatever goes on over their network can be a potential issue for THEM, especially if you are using their data connection to download illegal porn, or malware, or whatever else.

And quite honestly, if you were spending time on my dime to scout out the "flavor of the day" and whack off to porn over MY company's network, I'd take disciplinary action against you too. If you have that much time to be messing around at work and NOT working, you don't need to be wasting my money by getting paid wages while doing it.

Bwahahah!!!! I had already stated there was no Wi-Fi involved. No company resources involved and none of it occurred during company time.

I assume your post was tongue-in-cheek. Good one though.

 

[ivanl3]

The link that Q pointed me to lead me to another site where I read about the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 18 USC sec. 2510 et seq.). I am not a lawyer but it seems to me that this act makes it unlawful for a cell phone company to monitor the use of their employee's personal devices without the employee granting such permission.

 

[AnonUserName]

The link that Q pointed me to lead me to another site where I read about the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (part of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 18 USC sec. 2510 et seq.). I am not a lawyer but it seems to me that this act makes it unlawful for a cell phone company to monitor the use of their employee's personal devices without the employee granting such permission.

Is this addressed anywhere in the company handbook?

 

[ivanl3]

Is this addressed anywhere in the company handbook?

No it is not, but can't imagine why it would be. Why would a company list all the things that would be unlawful for them to do?

 

[justalayman]

Not sure what else you would need to know, but maybe you can answer better if I provide a hypothetical example.

1. John works for a cell phone company.

time out. Define:: cell phone company. Is Verizon a cell phone company because they sell cell phone service; is Apple a cell phone company because they sell cell phones; is Nokia a cell phone company because they make cell phones

I am guessing it is the first one

2. John owns his own personal phone.

see #1

3. John buys service for his phone from his employer.

ok

4. John occasionally sends/receives off color or adult oriented texts or visits web sites that contain adult content on his phone.

ok

5. John does not visit these sites or send texts while at work. In fact, John never turns his phone on at work. Never even brings it to the office.

ok

6. John's cell company (his employer) chooses to monitor the usage of his (and all employees) who buy their cell service from them.

ah, but here we run into problems again define; monitor

7. The company discovers item #4 during this process.

ok

8. The company chooses to discipline John for what they discovered. They claim that these actions violated the company's personal conduct policy.

ok

So, was the monitoring legal?

maybe; maybe not

Was the discipline legal?

it would appear to be based on the info provided

 

[swalsh411]

In my opinion, if you believe your employer might be snooping on your text messages on your personal phone you fall into one of two categories:

1. You have actual evidence to support your theory.

2. You also believe your employer is sending agents to crawl into your septic tank at night to see what you have been eating.

 

[ivanl3]

Not sure what else you would need to know, but maybe you can answer better if I provide a hypothetical example.

time out. Define:: cell phone company. Is Verizon a cell phone company because they sell cell phone service; is Apple a cell phone company because they sell cell phones; is Nokia a cell phone company because they make cell phones

I am guessing it is the first one




ah, but here we run into problems again define; monitor

1. Correct. A company like Verizon, AT&T or Sprint --- not Apple, etc.
6. Monitor = Systematically inspect, using parsing softwar,e for content, language, pictures, URLs, IP addresses etc, that is of an adult (but legal) nature. When such things are identified, produce a report that is sent to HR and/or Senior management for review and action.

According to my interpretation of Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 this would be illegal unless the individual (who in this case is both an employee and customer of Sprint (e.g)) gave permission for this to occur.

And since this action is illegal, I think the employee/customer would have a strong civil case against Sprint (e.g.) if they were harmed (fired) by actions directly resulting from the illegal action (if it truly is illegal). It sure seems to me that it would be strongly inadvisable for Sprint, etc, to do this "monitoring".

 

[justalayman]

OK,let's say they could terminate you with cause for what was on your phone. Lets presume they obtained that information illegally/



firing you is still legal even though how they obtained the information was illegal. Their crime does not diminish your actions. A criminal court is about the only place that information can be suppressed due to it being obtained illegally.

6. Monitor = Systematically inspect, using parsing softwar,e for content, language, pictures, URLs, IP addresses etc, that is of an adult (but legal) nature. When such things are identified, produce a report that is sent to HR and/or Senior management for review and action.

I'm not sure that in itself would be illegal. Privacy laws are generally intended to deal with personal communications. I do not believe your web surfing falls under such protections. If they can record your URL's IP;'s etc, ( and I suspect it is legal) there would be nothing illegal about them visiting that site to see what you saw.

 

[Proserpina]

firing you is still legal even though how they obtained the information was illegal. Their crime does not diminish your actions. A criminal court is about the only place that information can be suppressed due to it being obtained illegally.

This is really all that's important.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

I suspect as a part of OP accepting the company discount, he has authorized the monitoring. What is already clear is the employer is not illegally monitoring his phone, if they are the phone company. Nor are they illegally monitoring the usage of their system.