Invasion of Privacy With a Hidden Camera: Employer and Employee Law

Hoping to capture an evening intruder who surfed the Internet and viewed pornography on a work computer, a company installed a hidden camera to monitor the computer. The hidden camera was not turned on during the day when the employees were present – just at night in the hopes of catching the culprit.

The employees, however, spotted a flashing red light on the camera during the day, discovered the camera and then sued for invasion of privacy. The employer had not disclosed to the daytime workers that it had installed the hidden camera pointed at the employees’ computers. The employer did not suspect the employees.

Now here’s the rub: employees have an expectation of privacy in the workplace. Why? Well, that’s the law, although it seems to this writer that such a right is fairly minimal because it’s a work environment, after all, not a home. But then again, I’m from Orange County, not the greater part of the State of California where such rights are taken for granted.

But I’m getting off track.

In our case, Hernandez v. Hillsides, Inc., the California Supreme Court held that a privacy violation based on intrusion would require that the employer “intentionally intrude[d] into a place…to which plaintiff has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The Court also reasoned that “the intrusion must occur in a manner highly offensive to a reasonable person.” While the Court acknowledged that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a “solo office [with] relative seclusion,” however, in order to state a claim against an employer, the intrusion must be “sufficiently serious and unwarranted…to constitute an egregious breach of the social norms.”

Now there’s a definitive rule for you. It depends on the circumstances.

The safest way to install a hidden camera is to do so only after disclosing it to the employees and have them acknowledge that the employer has done so and that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. Otherwise, employers just may get sued.

[thanks to j. craig williams via cc]

Facebook Will Keep Your Content Forever

From The Small Print Project:

There’s been a lot of talk about Facebook and its terms and dedication to privacy over the past 5 months since it launched the F8 Platform which spawned an elaborate and decentralized Developers Network.
We recently received a submission questioning Facebook’s Terms of Service:

Lowpoints: By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant… worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy… and distribute such User Content for any purpose…. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time.

Highpoints: If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

Based on these terms, it should be clear to all that what happens in Facebook is Facebook’s. Sure, you can remove anything you submit / post on Facebook at any time, which consequentially terminates said liscences / sublicenses, but — does Facebook immediately archive all submissions? According to these terms, Facebook could stay out of trouble by immediately broadcasting all submissions/content via archival copies — which Facebook retains all rights to in perpetuity, whether or not the user withdraws said content. In essence, Facebook could hijack one’s copyright thanks by adding it’s stamp to an otherwise unchanged digital archive.

What deficiencies have you noticed in Facebook’s Terms and privacy policies in regards to third party applications? What issues do you fear / foresee and how can Facebook users further protect themselves? Moreover, what risk do these conflicts present to a company now “valued” at $15bn and how must it lead by example? Is Facebook breaking its own rules by allowing staff to circumvent the privacy policy, as Valleywag’s Nick Douglas alleged?