Continuing our previous discussion on U.S. Supreme Court case on a data privacy issue related to whether or not an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy for personal messages sent on devices owned by an employer, we have to ask, does it matter that employees know that personal information will be captured and monitored by employers? If a person who is a member of a golf club speaks too loudly in the club restaurant and is overheard by others, that person has no one else to blame if that information is used to cause negative consequences. Just as the loud speaker could have spoken more softly as well as more carefully, so a user of electronic communications tools should recognize that others may see what he or she regarded as private. So logically, a user of an electronic communications channel may very well want to assume that any communications that are made could very be made public.

That does not mean that personal communications would necessarily be exposed. A business may or may not choose to search the data. For example, data on a desktop that is used at home for at least some business use may be protected by being backed up to remote storage and the employer may pay for the protection. In the process, personal information may also be protected. The employer may be protecting the data only so that it can be restored in the case of an emergency and never plans to look at it. However, by residing within the company's data repository that information could be included in an eDiscovery request.

via Should An Expectation Of Employee Privacy Exist? – Network Computing.