🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 28 Jan 2000 23:17:08 -0800, Jeffrey B. Siegal <jbs@quiotix.com> wrote:
>Isaac wrote:
>> Not necessarily.  Even on the employer's premises using the employer's
>> equipment there are still privacy concerns to address.   By law if the
>> employer wants to monitor the company's phones or email they have to notify
>> the employees that they are doing so (at least constructively)
>> 
>> Clearly the restroom facilities belong to your employer, but there
>> would still be an uproar if your employer were found to be video
>> taping people in the toilet.
>
>Again, if the employer owned the information, it wouldn't be private to the
>employee.  The restroom is private because the employer doesn't own the
>employee's body.

I don't think we are disputing whether the employer owns the information
in the email.  We agree that the information in an email from the employee's
spouse to the employee belongs to that employee.  And yet the law
allows the company to read it as long as the company has a published
policy to disallow personal email and publishes their intent to read anything
on their system.  The employer doesn't get the employee's permission, they give
the employee notice.  Doesn't seem to me that the employee can claim to
own the account.

If they fail to give the employee such notice, then the company will encounter 
problems if the are found to be reading private messages.  

Your original point (I think. It's clipped now) was that if the employee
could not read the employees email without informing the employee first,
then that strengthened the argument that the employee owned the account
on the computer.

I am suggesting that privacy concerns could still result in preventing
employer access even if the facilities are unquestionably owned by the 
employer.

Isaac