Lucy, an emergency medical technician (EMT), was issued a cell phone by her employer, Mercy Ambulance Service. Mercy had a policy that prohibited employees from using work phones and other devices for personal matters. Lucy exceeded Mercy’s limit on text messages for the month, so without Lucy’s knowledge, Mercy management read her stored messages to determine whether all of the text messages were indeed work-related.

Did Mercy’s action violate Lucy’s privacy rights? No.

When an employer provides an employee with a cell phone or other tech device and has a stated policy about its use, the employee is not considered to have a reasonable expectation of ______________ in the data.

The employee should anticipate that anything in the device, including texts, is subject to ______________.

The employer can avoid potential legal restrictions by telling the employees that they are subject to such ______________. Because Mercy had a stated policy that limited employees’ use of tech devices to workrelated matters, Lucy had no reasonable expectation of ______________ in her use of the phone.