LEG500: Law, Ethnics and Corporate Governance
17 July 2011

1. Explain where an employee can reasonably expect to have privacy in the workplace.
Reasonable expectation of privacy for an employee could require a balancing test as what the US District Court judge used in the
1996 case of Michael A. Smith v. The Pillsbury Company.
The judge ruled in the defendants favor saying that
Pillsbury’s “interest in preventing inappropriate and unprofessional comments or even illegal activity over the email system outweighed any privacy interest the employee may have in those (email) comments”,( Halbert 2011, p.72). In this case, it was more important for Pillsbury to know what communication was going out through its email system than it was to protect
Mr. Smith’s privacy.

Consequently, where an employee expects to have reasonable privacy depends on the employers’ own policy within the workplace. The policies need to be clear and easily accessible to the employee. Many US companies would have their policies posted on their internal websites where an employee can review them at anytime. The information normally spells-out that any use of company facilities or equipment garners the right for that employer to monitor it at any time. This could include their email system, voicemail system, company phone, company car, etc.
To be honest, I think arguably the places where an employee can expect reasonable privacy are within a more enclosed areas. One of the most enclosed areas at a workplace is the bathroom or a changing room in a company’s gym, for example.
It is an acceptable understanding in our society even within the workplace that areas where the employee is at their most vulnerable would have the highest expectancy of privacy. 2. In the office workplace there are typically two types of workplaces, an open