Bart Lazar Quoted in New York Post, Washington Times and TechNewsWorld
Discussing City of Ontario v. Quon U.S. Supreme Court Text Privacy Decision

Bart Lazar was quoted in the June 21, 2010 New York Post article, "Court’s Text Message," the June 18, 2010 TechNewsWorld article, "SC Leaves Big Questions Open in Text-Message Privacy Case," and the June 17, 2010 Washington Times article, "Court Backs Privacy of Texter, But Not All Workers." The TechNewsWorld article also appeared in E-Commerce Times and Top News UK. According to the articles, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, June 17, 2010 that text messages sent by a police officer, Quon, on department equipment cannot be kept secret from his superiors. In a unanimous ruling, the court dismissed Quon’s argument that in reading the texts his bosses had violated the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches. Instead, the court affirmed a public employer’s right to eye the texts, as long as there was a “work-related purpose” for doing it.

In the New York Post article, Bart commented that the main takeaway for employers is the need to have a clear policy on e-privacy. The decision, he continued, “affirmed the basic principles that we have continuously told clients: 1.) Have a policy; 2.) the policy should be understandable; 3.) the policy should be clearly communicated to the employees; and 4.) the company should train employees and supervisors on the policy.”

Bart pointed out to TechNewsWorld that the issue of whether an employee has rights if a supervisor sidesteps a written policy is still unsettled. He added that the Supreme Court could have shut the door on other issues of employees' rights to privacy, but by deciding the case on narrow grounds, it did not.

Bart commented to the Washington Times that the decision leaves unresolved the issue of whether an employee could ultimately have privacy rights using company equipment because of a supervisor's modification of written policy, such as what happened in the Quon case. "That's the loophole that wasn't closed by the decision," he added. Despite the decision leaving "the door open for reasonable expectations of privacy," Bart said, employees "need to use discretion with how and what they do on employer-provided equipment." For employers, he recommended having clearly written policies that includes a provision preventing supervisors from altering the policy on an ad-hoc basis.