Can Your Boss Read Your Text Messages?By AllBusiness Editors | In: FinanceDo you use a company issued pager or cell phone for personal communications?Perhaps you send a text message to a spouse or signifcant other?If so, do you expect those communications to be private?If you do, you might be interested in what the U.. upreme !ourt had to say about the sub"ect yesterday.#he case before them involved an o$cer, gt. %uon, a member of a !alifornia police department &'# team who had been issued a department pager with texting capabilities.'lthough the department had been told up front not to expect privacy when using the e(uipment, they were also told that they could use them occasionally for personal use.&hen employees exceeded their monthly allotment of allowed text messages the department would re(uire them to pony up and pay the di)erence.#he o$cer at the center of this case did exceed his limit repeatedly and after a while his supervisors got tired of chasing down the overage fees.#hey began to wonder whether the limit for text messages had been set too low.o the chief decided to audit the text message recordsand re(uested the text service to provide the necessary information.&hen the department reviewed records for one month of gt. %uon*s on+dutytexting activity they discovered ,-- of his ,./ on+duty texts were of a highly personal nature 0 sexually explicit messages sent to his wife and his mistress.1f course gt. %uon was confronted about the fnding and the lawsuit that followed suggests the meeting didn*t go so well.gt. %uon claimed the police department had violated his 2ourth 'mendment right against unreasonable search and sei3ure, among other things.It*s an interesting (uestion that too4 numerous twists and turns as it went up the "udicial ladder.#he federal trial court held that gt. %uon did have an expectation of privacyin his personal messages, but that the !ity*s actions were defensible because they were for a legitimate business purpose.#he 5th !ircuit !ourt of 'ppeals reversed the lower court.In their view the search may have been legitimate, but they thought the police chief should have used less intrusive means to determine usage rates.2inally, the U.. upreme !ourt reversed the 5th !ircuit and agreed with the lower court. It is a narrowly written opinion and some lawyers are reluctant to speculate about what the decision means for private sector employers and employees.2ran4ly, I don*t thin4 it*s that di$cult.1n the one hand is the (uestion of whether the employer had a right to search their own e(uipment.6ere the !ourt*s opinion ma4es clear that the search was "ustifed because it was for a legitimate business reason. #hat*s the answer 7 it must be for a legitimate business reason 7 not nosing around for the fun of it.&hat is legitimate will depend on the facts of each case. 8ranted the employer*s permission to allow 9some: personal use could under some circumstances trigger an expectation of privacy.'n example would be an employee having a privileged conversation with their attorney over their personal e+mail account but is being accessed from their o$ce andtransmitted through company servers.;ut here, the number of text messages was directly related to the cost issue and cost, of course costs go to the heart of legitimate fnancial business interest.Interestingly, none of the legal reports I*ve seen so far about this case tell us what happened to the wife and the mistress.;et gt. %uon had some explaining to do.It would seem to me that if you want to 4eep the mistress thing (uiet it*s not too smart to correspond with her using a communications device that you don*t own or control eep it separate.#hat*s why my number one rule for avoiding smo4ing gun documentsis to always stic4 to company business when wearing your business hat or using business resources.