San Francisco, CA – Court: Employees’ Text Messages Private

San Francisco, CA – An employer has no right to read an employee’s text messages without the worker’s knowledge and consent, and federal law bars service providers from turning over the contents of the messages to the employer who pays for the service, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

The court’s unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel stemmed from a lawsuit by Ontario, Calif., police Sgt. Jeff Quon and three others against the city’s service provider, the city and its Police Department for violating his constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches.