SMS Messages Have Privacy Protections, Court Rules

The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that text messages are private communications. The court also ruled that service providers handling such messages are subject to the Stored Communications Act. This means that service providers cannot release the contents of text messages without the consent of the sender or receiver, even in cases where the device is provided to an employee by an employer. Ruling that the communications themselves are protected under the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment, employers seeking to determine whether messages are business or personal in nature can only seek redacted information such as the number called or the time of the messages, and not the contents of the messages themselves. In the event a crime is suspected, a search warrant may be requested seeking access to message contents. Thanks to K.C. Jones of Information Week for this item.