Electronic mail,privacy, and the public sector: Guidelines for public employees and organizations

What privacy rights are public employees entitled to when using their electronic mail systems? Are they entitled to privacy rights in the messages they send or receive? The setting, public or private, is crucial to determine what privacy rights exist for the employee. Unfortunately, no public sector electronic mail privacy case has been considered by the courts. Nevertheless, E-mail privacy guidance does exist. This article investigates previous privacy considerations provided in other workplace situations—cases that involve technologies other than E-mail—in search for common rules established by the Supreme Court. With this foundation, the article then applies the same rules to an electronic mail environment and provides guidelines intended to assist public managers in the creation or reevaluation of their organization’s electronic mail privacy policy.