June 19, 2008 3:36 PM

Texting on your work phone
Posted by Jesse Nunesat 3:36 PM

Do you use your company cellphone to send out personal text messages? Are you worried that those communications can be easily accessed and used against by your employer?

Well, thanks to a new ruling by a US federal appeals court, it is now harder for employers to legally gain access to text messages that are sent by employees on company phones, the Associated Press reports:

Under Wednesday's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can't read them unless the worker agrees.

Users of text-messaging services "have a reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding messages stored on the service provider's network, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in the three-judge panel's unanimous opinion.

...

The judges had few precedents, Wardlaw acknowledged in the ruling.

"The extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic communications in the Internet Age is an open question," she wrote.

A civil liberties advocacy group called the ruling a "tremendous victory" for online privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a posting online that the ruling helps ensure the Fourth Amendment "applies to your communications online just as strongly as it does to packages and letters."

Unfortunately for cellphone-using teens, the ruling does nothing to stop your mom from snooping through your text messages when you leave your phone in your laundry-bound jeans pocket.