Privacy Issues in the Workplace

The City appealed the Ninth Circuit's ruling and the United States Supreme Court agreed to decide the Fourth Amendment questions. The Supreme Court decided this case without determining whether Quon had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the text messages. The Supreme Court discussed the difficulty in predicting how employee privacy rights will be shaped by the rapid evolution of technology used to communicate, society's workplace norms, and laws protecting employee rights, The Court was thus reluctant to issue a broad holding concerning employees’ privacy expectations vis-à-vis employer- provided technological equipment for fear of the implications such a holding would have on future cases. Because this case could be decided on narrower grounds, the Supreme Court made three assumptions for the sake of argument: (1) that Quon had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the text messages sent on the City issued pager; (2) the City's review of the transcript constituted a Fourth Amendment search; and (3) principles applicable to a public employer's search of an employee's physical office apply with at least the same force when the employer intrudes on the employee's privacy in the electronic sphere. The Supreme Court found that the search was justified at its inception because there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search was necessary for non-investigatory or administrative purposes. Specifically, the Police Chief ordered the search to determine whether the character limit on the City’s contract was sufficient to meet the City's needs. The City had a legitimate interest in ensuring that employees were not being forced to pay out of their own pockets for work-related expenses. On the other hand, the City had to determine whether it was paying for extensive personal communications. The scope of the City’s search was also reasonable because it was an efficient and expedient way to determine whether Quon's overages were the result of work-related messaging or personal use. Although it may have been reasonable for the City to review transcripts of all the months in which Quon exceeded his character allotment, the City only reviewed the messages for two months. The investigation was also limited to the review of a redacted transcript covering only messages Quon sent while on duty. Even if Quon had some expectation of privacy in his messages, the Supreme Court held that it would not have been reasonable for Quon to believe that his messages were in all circumstances immune from scrutiny. The Department had told him his messages were subject to auditing. As a law enforcement officer, he knew or should have known that his text messages could be reviewed to assess the SWAT Team’s performance in particular emergency situations or some other legitimate purpose. Although there were arguably less intrusive searches

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