Employee has no right to privacy in workplace computer says Ninth Circuit.

( Categories : Court )
The company had voluntarily turned over the employee’s work computer to the FBI during a child pornography investigation. The employee later claimed this violated the Fourth Amendment, and sought to suppress the evidence in his criminal prosecution that he had downloaded child pornography. “Social norms suggest that employees are not entitled to privacy in the use of workplace computers, which belong to their employers and pose significant dangers in terms of diminished productivity and even employer liability,” the appeals court noted. It held that a disseminated computer-use policy is “entirely sufficient” to defeat any expectation of privacy that an employee might harbor.