05-13-2004, 02:43 PM
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Too lazy to set a custom title
Industry Role:
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Corona Del Mar, CA
Posts: 10,520
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Quote:
Originally posted by xenophobic
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV:
However a friend of mine just went through the same sort of thing, the company he worked for installed a program to monitor all of his activity, and found Email he had sent they disapproved of, and fired him, I asked a question to a internet lawyer here is his reply
(This was a question/answer NOT legal advise)
this was in response to the ECPA law:
<I>Under ECPA, a company has the right to examine its own computer equipment (including info stored on the computer) - but it should inform the employee of the possibility of monitoring (as there can be a question on who "owns" what info on the computer, as well as whether its examination is for systems abuse, etc). Whether the data was "private" may depend on whether the monitored email account was for business, personal or combined use - and whether others had a password or other access to the info. Even if a violation occurred, the ECPA is not self-enforcing, so the employee would need to raise any ECPA claims and seek to bar the data. Not much case law available, so hard to predict what might happen. If the info is not protected under ECPA, then your friend could be terminated in most states without any problem, based on lack of loyalty. If the only issue is whether to receive unemployment or not, unlikely that he would want to invest big bucks to fight the issue.</I>
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Informative! Thank you very much!  |
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