Employees' text messages are private, even when transmitted on devices their companies pay for, a U.S. appeals court ruled this week.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in favor of a police officer and others who claimed that the city of Ontario, Calif., violated their Fourth Amendment rights, which provide citizens with a reasonable expectation of privacy, by reading the contents of their text messages. It also ruled that the company providing the department's paging service falls under the Stored Communications Act. That means carriers cannot reveal the contents of SMS or text messages without authorization from the end user -- even if the user is an employee.
Personally I always assume that someone is reading my text messages and email ... but then I am a non-citizen living in the USA.
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Not moderated but I do delete spam and I would rather that people not act like assholes.