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9th Circuit Appeals court in California has acknowledged the rights to privacy for California employees with regards to their private Email and Text Messages, stating that employers who have contracted an  external business to transmit text messages cannot read them unless the employee first gives consent.

The ruling however does allow employers to have right to access employee e-mails if they are kept on an internal server.

Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote that workers who are users of text messaging services "have a reasonable expectation of privacy" if their messages stored on the service provider's network.

"The extent to which the Fourth Amendment provides protection for the contents of electronic-communications in the Internet Age is an open question," she also wrote.

The courts also concluded that having employees signing documents, or creating policies that challenge or create a reduction of rights will not provide legal protection to employers.

Employers Must take due care so as Not to infringe on their employees' reasonable expectation of privacy, and/or violate any of the laws that protect private and/or confidential, or personal communications.

"The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in favor of a police officer and others who claimed that the city of Ontario, Calif., violated their Fourth Amendment rights, which provide citizens with a reasonable expectation of privacy, by reading the contents of their text messages.

It also ruled that the company providing the department's paging service falls under the Stored Communications Act. That means carriers cannot reveal the contents of SMS or text messages without authorization from the end user -- even if the user is an employee."

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