I mean, the company policy makes it clear that the computer and network are company property, and that we shouldn’t expect any privacy there.
However, there is a genuine divergence between what companies say and what they do. There is also a divergence between what employees regurgitate about their expectations of privacy (corporate mantra) and how they actually act.
My own answer to the question, “do I have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace?” What we really need to do is better define the scope of that reasonable expectation of privacy. In the course of an average day at work, an employee leaves a great deal of “digital detritus” — a trail of activities. The ownership of these digital records, as well as an employees’ privacy rights with respect to them is not entirely clear under the law. Employers provide employees with a number of tools that leave a digital trail. This may include their computers, email accounts, Internet access, VPN access, regular phone, VOIP service, cell phone, alphanumeric pager, RSA SecurID token, not to mention the video surveillance, and records of badge entry and exit.
Complicating these issues are the questions of ownership, access and rights. For example, an employer may purchase a cell phone for an employee and retain ownership of the phone. Or it may allow the employee to buy the phone, but register it on a corporate plan for service. It may reimburse the employee for all telephone calls made or require the employee to demonstrate the business nature of calls reimbursed. Employees may telecommute from home using either employer or employee supplied equipment.
The Internet connection to the office may be paid for by the employee or the employer. When logging on remotely, does the ISP have any right to monitor content? When a VPN connection is made, who may monitor what happens on the VPN? May your employer burst into your home, seize your personal computer (that you own, but store some of their files on) and take it?
Privacy in the workplace extends beyond the electronic workplace. For example, can your employer read your personal mail, sent to your office address — even if it is marked “personal and confidential — addressee only?” Can your employer videotape you in the office? What about in the restrooms, lounges, parking lots, or in your car?
It’s easy to say that employees have no expectation of privacy, and even to post corporate policies and notices to that effect.
The electronic workplace is no longer just the cubicle, desk or office.
Lance Corporal Jennifer Long was issued a government computer to use on a government military network. DoD computer systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including to ensure that their use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability and operational security. Use of this DoD computer system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring of this system. It noted that while the government said it could monitor, it rarely did. It also noted that the case was initiated when the Marine Corps Criminal Investigative Division (CID) — essentially a law enforcement agency, simply decided to inspect the servers to look for evidence of criminal activity.
You may expect privacy for some purposes (police searches) and not for others (your boss). You don’t leave the laptop lying around in the reception area because, after all, there is noting “private” there. You expect that e-mail will be read by people you send it to, and by others they send it to, by network administrators when necessary in the course of their work, and possibly by counsel or others when needed for business purposes.
It creates some privacy rights, but not with respect to the provider of the network. A SWAT officer named Jeff Quoin sued his former employer for reading the contents of his government supplied alphanumeric pager. This was the same officer who, several years before, successfully sued the same police department for placing video cameras in the showers and locker rooms as part of an investigation of a missing flashlight.
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/421?ref=rss