United States v. Angevine - Essay Example

Running head: business United s v Angevine Barring (very unlikely) explicit assurances of privacy from the company, should an employee have any expectation of privacy while in the workplace?Ideally, companies provide technology and related infrastructure to help its employees deliver better performance and results. It is very rare that companies provide such facilities as complementary benefits to its employees. Complements from companies usually include other kinds of gift items, remuneration etc, and not IT-related equipment.

Equipments such as computers, laptops, phones etc provided by the company accompany their usage regulations and are, thus, monitored for usage. All companies that provide such equipment to their employees also clarify usage criteria and regulations, monitoring schedules, and any other policies attached to the usage. Therefore, companies reserve their rights to exercise these policies and/or regulations at their discretion. Any violation of these policies and/or regulations can also result in serious disciplinary actions and other consequences, which are usually mentioned or detailed in the policies/regulations.

Employees cannot expect to have privacy in usage of such equipment meant for official use though the equipment may be carried out of official premises and can be used as per the employees’ needs. Therefore, employees cannot expect to have explicit assurances of privacy on usage of such equipment and are thus obliged to follow the regulations set forth by their company. Moreover, a company hires employees to achieve a specific goal, which becomes a shared goal of all employees; this shared goal is achieved by collective efforts of all employees.

In order to help them achieve these goals, companies provide them with all sorts of facilities, equipment, tools, and technology. Thus employees are expected to make use of these facilities only to enhance theirs and company’s performance. Usage of such equipment for any personal reasons would be a violation of the code. Most companies do not object usage of equipment for personal reasons as long as the reasons are genuine and within limits of law. If the equipment is used for illegal, unethical, and immoral reasons, then the company has the right to seize the equipment.

In order to prevent such undesirable usage, companies also reserve the right to monitor the usage of their equipment with or without the users’ knowledge. Companies that offer such equipment to their employees for professional usage usually educate the employees about these guidelines. As seen in the case of United States versus Angevine, the Oklahoma State University computer policy clearly mentions about the usage limits, privacy and monitoring policies, which Angevine ought to have been aware of before using the computer to download pornographic pictures, which is unethical and illegal as well as against the University’s ethics.

Moreover, the computer that belonged to the University is a property of the University, and hence should be used for official purposes only. The University reserves all rights to monitor its usage; by doing so, it can invade the privacy of its employees. Hence, employees cannot have expectations of privacy in usage of work-related equipment or at workplace.