Employers’ ability to access emails and text messages sent through company accounts greatly reduced by Federal Court ruling.

Almost everyone has heard a story about someone getting fired after sending out inappropriate emails or non work-related text messages from a company phone. Employees of many companies have been forced to be cautious about every email they send lest they be called out by a snooping superior for inappropriate activities or worse still, wasting company resources.

Now, thanks to a new decision from a federal appeals court, employees might be able to rest a little bit easier knowing that their privacy is now more closely guarded than ever before. The decision is expected to drastically limit an employer’s ability to access the emails and text messages sent through company accounts.

According to the ruling, companies may have access to an employee’s messages only if those messages are maintained internally. This means that if a company uses an outside company to allow users to send texts or an outside email service for handling emails, it cannot legally request to view the communications made by its employees. The only way that an outside force would be able to access that information would be if a warrant was created to obtain it.

This will likely protect almost all text messages, as most are done through cell phone service providers. However, some are quick to point out that a large percentage of companies keep email on private servers and will therefore still have access to employee emails.

Many privacy advocates see this as a big step for online privacy. This ruling was the first by a federal appeals court to extend the same 4th Amendment protections to online communications that letters and packages have enjoyed for years.

Employees are now able to send texts and to a lesser extent emails with little fear of reprisal. Additionally these new privacy rights even extend to law enforcement’s ability to gain access to online communications except by the use of warrant. Previously only a subpoena was needed to obtain such information.