Learn whether your telephone and voicemail communications are protected by privacy laws. The hottest area of workplace law these days involves electronic surveillance. Employees are increasingly questioning employers' rights to monitor their phone conversations and voicemail messages at work. Under the Act, if a call is being monitored for business reasons, if a personal call comes in, an employer must hang up as soon as it's apparent that the call is personal.
Some state laws have additional twists.
A number of them require, for example, that not only the employee but the person on the other end of the phone must know about and consent to the call being monitored. While much business communication these days takes place through voicemail messages, the law is still unclear on how much privacy employees can expect for these messages. The ECPA appears to protect them. But given the workings of voicemail systems, this clarifies little. In the meantime, employees are learning the lay of the law the hard way.