No Computer Privacy

A federal appeals court in San Francisco has ruled that employees do not have an expectation of privacy for accounts on their work computers if they have been properly admonished. The decision in a Montana case upheld the conviction of a man who police say had pornographic materials stored on his work computer, and which the employer discovered and called police. A key portion of the court’s decision was that the company’s’ employees, “were apprised of the company’s monitoring efforts through training and an employment manual, and they were told that the computers were company-owned and not to be used for activities of a personal nature.” This notice provided objective proof, the court said, that the employee did not have a legitimate expectation of privacy. Download the court’s decision here (pdf).