Privacy: Where is the Line in the Sand?

Courtesy of http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/privacy/

There is a case to be heard by the Supreme Court involving a police officer and his use of a pager for personal messages. The pager was issued to him by his employer, a police department. This officer was terminated for sending explicit texts on the pager, but the case isn’t about the explicity of the texts, its about a reasonable expectation of privacy, because he was only found out when the texts went over the allowed limit. See the legal details here.

The true legal issue will rest on the idea that as work and personal time blurs, so blurs the idea that the company controls all data that is sent or received from its equipment – if you carry a blackberry, you may be like me, and receive email from the boss at 11pm on a Saturday night, needing an answer, or requiring some of your time. As companies encroach on their employees personal time, it makes sense that some of those personal communications will encroach on the company equipment.

I actually carry two phones in order to keep my personal and business life as separate as possible, but I know that I am an exception to this rule. While the prevailing law has maintained that companies do in fact own the data, more recent legal opinions are shifting the wind toward some level of privacy for employees.

Another recent case is a lawsuit filed by parents of a Pennsylvania student where the School District supplied laptops and then activated the websam on the laptop remotely – for monitoring purposes. Webcam screenshots were being taken of students, under the age of 18, in whatever location the laptop happens to be. (bedrooms, living quarters, other people’s houses?) The student at the heart of the lawsuit was accused of “improper behavior in his home” (The specific behavior hasn’t been made public) at which time his parents were made aware that the webcam had remote functionality. See more details here and here.

If I discovered my home was being monitored by the school district simply because the school had issued my child (or another child, not my own) a computer, I think I’d be filing a lawsuit as well. My company issued me a laptop for use in the course of my work – I’m a consenting adult – what right would they have to monitor my behavior via webcam while not on company premises?

Technology is presenting privacy challenges. Just because we have the ability to do something, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. Fire an employee for sending sexually explicit texts, fine. But fire him for sending any sort of personal text? Not so much. Track locations of laptops with full disclosure to students, parents or employees, and prior notification before actual tracking takes place, sure. Monitor an individual through remote access of webcams with no notification that its even possible that this could happen, or in the privacy of one’s own home? That borders on voyeuristic (I’m being generous here) and I’ll wager will be upheld as a 4th amendment violation, not to mention an Electronic Communications Privacy Act violation.

Lawsuits like these are going to have far reaching implications on work, work/life balance, and how intrusive employers and government entities have the right to be in our lives. Its time for the tide to turn on technology law to protect our privacy. My employer, my child’s school district and the government do not own my life. And those who give up essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither. (to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin)

What say you? Does the employer have the right to monitor all communications, and terminate for personal use? What if that personal use happens at 10pm on a Thursday night, when you aren’t usually working, but you just happen to be finishing that big project due next week? Should webcams on laptops be able to be remotely accessed for monitoring purposes? Where should we draw the line?