"With regards to external media, consider a government employee who posts on Facebook from his/her desk. Clearly the government doesn't own the communications system where those posts are stored, but it also clearly could own the system used to make the posts (the government's network and computer). Is there an inherent right to privacy there under this rubric? I don't know but under the guidance above I'd suspect not. I think it also further muddies the waters and I think we'll see these cases much sooner than later."

Jesse/Mark:

The discussion of privacy over entity owned (government or otherwise) equipment and systems fascinates me.  That's why the Quon case has been of interest to me and why I posted the links to the articles yesterday.

I think you are both right.  I think we won't know how relevant this case is, or not, to Facebook and other externally facing social networking systems.  My personal opinion is that with Facebook and other such systems, privacy of posts is very limited.  If I were to post something on my Facebook account and criticize my company or my boss, how private is that information?  Isn't it out there basically for anyone and everyone to see?  In that regard, I think the privacy one might expect in sending a text to a friend with the same gripes on a company-owned phone is a little different.

In this case, the Justices made it very clear that since the phone was owned by the government entity, there was no expectation of privacy.  We'll see how that plays out to the private sector, but I bet that privacy will be very limited as well.

On a side not, speaking of Facebook, there have been many instances recently where people have been fired from their jobs because of what they posted on their Facebook account.  Do a quick Google search using "fired over facebook" to see some of the articles.  Very interesting reading.  These cases alone lead me to believe that there is no such thing as privacy on Facebook.

Thanks, Steve

Stephen A. Smith, MLIS, CRM, CDIA+
Records Manager
QVC, Inc.  Internal Audit
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