San Antonio Employment Law Blog : San Antonio Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Thomas Crane Law Firm : South Texas, Bexar County TX Wage & Discrimination Issues

You may have heard about the school district in California that let some 2,000 students take home school-issued laptops,  The laptops had webcams and a software program, Theft Tracker.  Theft Tracker would take pictures with the web cam every 15 minutes, if the shool officials activated the program.  Many laptops were reported stolen.  So, the webcams were activated in many laptops. The program enabled the law enforcement authroities to recover six laptops.  But, some laptops were reported stolen but later found by the student.  Yet, the Theft Tracker was never deactivated.  The laptops overall took some 56,000 pictures.  About two-thirds of the pictures were related to the six actually stolen laptops.  The rest of the pictures were taken from laptops that had not been stolen. School officials simply neglected to deactivate the theft tracker software.  So, there were many pictures.

The parents were not told about the software.  They have even pretty upset, reports Workplace Privacy Counsel.  The school committed several errors, reports Workplace Privacy:

• The school failed to issue written policies regarding the use of Theft Tracker
• Parents and students were not informed and were not required to consent to its use

As Workplace Privacy Counsel explains, the same issues would apply to the workplace.  Any employer seeking to use similar technology would need to issue written policies regarding the technology and obtain consent from its employees.  

Otherwise, any employer would face what the California school district is facing: at least one lawsuit, so far regarding invasion of privacy; an FBI investigation; Congressional hearings; and one proposal by Sen. Specter to extend the Federal Wiretap Act to video surveillance.  

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 Electronic monitoring in the workplace is still an area of developing law.  It is clear that an employer cannot use bugging devices and phone wiretaps to discourage or monitor union activity.  It is also clear that no one, including employers, can intercept “wire, oral, or electronic communication.”  But, what is  “intercept”?  What does that mean?  For example, several cases have found that retrieving telephone messages dos not constitute an interception of the transmission. 

The most important consideration is the extent to which employers have let employees know they may be monitored.  If employees know they are being monitored, then that will reduce expectations of privacy.  A frequent issue is use of work email.  If the employer allows use of work email for personal use, the employer cannot later, for example, prohibit use of work email for union activity.  Generally, the extent to which employers can invade an employee’s personal email will depend on the extent to which the employee has used work email servers to develop or send the personal email and the extent to which the personal email is password protected.  

Texas does recognize the tort of invasion of privacy (if the invasion would be offensive to a reasonable person).  In the workplace, there are varying levels of expectations of privacy.  For example, if an employer provides lockers to employees, but requires them to provide their own locks, then the employee does have an expectation of privacy in her locker.  So, yes, if the employer searches that locker without the employee’s permission, then the employer has violated the employee’s right to privacy.  But, if the employer provides the lock, then there probably is no legitimate expectation of privacy.

A 2007 survey shows that many employer engage is some sort of electronic monitoring.  Out of 304 employers surveyed, 65% reported the use of software to block connections to inappropriate websites.  96% block access to adult sites, 61% to game sites and 50% to social networking sites.  46% track key strokes, content and time spent at the keyboard.  12% monitor the blogosphere to see what is being written about the employer.  43% monitor employee email.  So, yes electronic monitoring is a continuing practice. 

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If an employer accesses an employee's social networking site without permission, or worse, accesses the site under threat of termination, then the employer may be liable for a claim of invasion of privacy and violation of the federal Stored Communication Act.  Such was the result in a federal lawsuit in New Jersey.  Delaware Employment Blog explains that the employer noticed a private website on Myspace.  The Myspace page was put up by an employee and was used by many employees to discuss work.  The manager saw negative comments about the restaurant where they all worked.  Management then coerced a co-worker into providing the log in and password.  They later fired two employees for poor attitude based on their comments on the private Myspace page.  Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, Inc.   A jury trial found in favor of the two fired employees and against the restaurant. 

Delaware Blog suggests that it was the act of forcing the employee to give up her login info for a private closed membership site that made this case actionable.  

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