Governor Schwarzenegger will have until September 30th to sign, veto, or let it become law without his signature.
"The governor hasn't been tested on privacy, but since he's used to seeing the details of his personal life plastered all over the tabloids, I'd hope he's sensitive to people's interest in protecting their privacy," said Bowen, who authored three similar e-mail privacy bills in 1999, 2000, and 2001, which were vetoed by former-Governor Gray Davis. "Just because your boss owns the computers and pays for the Internet access doesn't mean he should have the right to spy on you without telling you. I understand why companies don't want to come out and tell employees point blank 'Guess what? We read your e-mail,' but people deserve the right to know if it's company policy to snoop."
SB 1841 requires employers to give employees a one-time written notice if they plan to read e-mail, track Internet use, or use other electronic devices to monitor employees on or off the job. The bill requires employers to explain what will be monitored -- for example employee e-mail content or location based on a GPS-chipped cell phone or car -- but doesn't require employers to tell employees each time they're about to read an e-mail or check an employee's whereabouts.
"Your boss can't listen in when you call to make a doctor's appointment if he doesn't tell you your call may be monitored, so why shouldn't the same rules apply when you send an e-mail to your doctor to set up the same appointment?" continued Bowen. "This doesn't prevent a company from monitoring its employees or from firing people who misuse company equipment. It just says if you monitor your employees, you've got to tell them it's company policy."
California law sets rules about what employers can do and how they can monitor their employee's telephone use at work, but the law doesn't cover computer usage. California Public Utilities Commission regulations require employers to inform employees when telephone conversations are recorded or monitored by either putting a beep tone on the line or by playing a recorded message. SB 1841 creates similar "right to know" laws to cover e-mail and the Internet. Employers who violate the bill are also subject to a misdemeanor penalty consisting of up to $500 and six months in jail.
A July 2004 survey by Forrester Consulting showed 48 percent of large U.S. companies regularly read outgoing e-mail sent by employees. According to the American Management Association's 2003 E-Mail Rules, Policies and Practices Survey, 52 percent of U.S. companies engage in some form of e-mail monitoring of employees, compared to only 14.7% in 1997. According to a 2003 survey of 192 companies conducted by the Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College in Massachusetts, 92 percent of employers monitor employee e-mail and the Internet use. According to the most recent survey from the Privacy Foundation (January 2001), 40.7 million workers regularly use e-mail or the Internet at work.
