NJ Court Upholds Privacy of Personal Emails At Work

chiguy sends word of a ruling from the New Jersey Supreme Court which found that a company did not have the right to read emails from an employee's personal account even through the account was accessed on a company computer. This ruling is likely to set precedent for other workplace privacy cases around the country. "'The court has recognized the very legitimate and real concerns with regards to privacy. This gives some guidance to employers in terms of how explicit (e-mail) policies need to be,' [attorney Marvin Goldstein] said. The ruling stems from a harassment and discrimination lawsuit Marina Stengart of Bergen County filed three years ago against Loving Care of Ridgefield Park. Stengart, then the executive director of nursing, sent her attorney eight e-mails from her company-loaned laptop about her issues with her superiors. Stengart used her Yahoo e-mail account. 'Under all of the circumstances, we find that Stengart could reasonably expect that e-mails she exchanged with her attorney on her personal, password-protected, web-based e-mail account, accessed on a company laptop, would remain private,' Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in the decision, which upholds an appeals court’s ruling last year."

Comments

Networks and proxies and firewalls oh my

[Stargoat]

Networks and proxies and firewalls oh my.

A person has no reason to expect anonymity on a computer or network that is not their own. Any key tracking software cannot differentiate between personal e-mail and work. Further, any firewall will not be able to differentiate either.

And what happens when a person uses personal e-mail addresses for work related happenings?

These sorts of nonsensical babblings are what happens when antediluvian luddites make important and lasting decisions in regards to technology they are in no way capable of comprehending - let alone understanding.

Instead, the court should have asked: if Stengart had left a written letter to her attorney in her desk when she left Loving Care, could Loving Care have used that letter in preperation for court cases?

But no. These ignorant technophobes said, "If there is a password, you should expect privacy." Moronic. Perfectly Moronic.