This blog was authored by Megan Lewis.
Earlier this month, in Perez v. City of Roseville, the U.S. Court of Appeals held that terminating a police officer for engaging in an off-duty, extramarital affair with a co-worker could violate the officer’s right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution.
Background Facts
Perez, a probationary police
On October 18, 2017, the California Supreme Court denied review of Santa Ana Police Officers Association, et al. v. City of Santa Ana et al., a decision from the Fourth District Court of Appeal involving information (sometimes referred to as “discovery”) that must be provided to a law enforcement officer in connection with a disciplinary
This post was authored by Alison R. Kalinski
The California Supreme Court today reversed the Court of Appeal in City of San Jose v. Superior Court (Smith), and held that communications by a city employee concerning public business on a personal account, such as email, phone or computer, may be subject to disclosure under
This post was authored by Gage C. Dungy and James Van
Overview
On January 1, 2016, Senate Bill 178 (“SB 178”) – the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act – became law and is codified under Penal Code section 1546, et. seq. This new law generally limits a government entity from being able to search or
Public officials may sometimes use personal devices such as smartphones and personal e-mail or other accounts to communicate concerning their agency’s business. Are these e-mails, texts, or other communications “public records” that must be disclosed in response to a demand under the California Public Records Act? The California Supreme Court will soon decide.
The Court
This blog post was authored by Heather Coffman
The California Court of Appeal recently issued a decision that may give some relief to public agencies responding to requests under the California Public Records Act (“PRA”). The Court found that the PRA does not require public agencies to produce communications sent or received by public officials
Harvard University recently had some explaining to do. Last fall, the University conducted an investigation into the source information leaked to the media about students at the Ivy League school who had cheated. The investigation included searching the work e-mail accounts of 16 Resident Deans without telling them. Although the University eventually told the one
Governor Jerry Brown last week signed two new privacy laws that will go into effect January 1, 2013. AB 1844 and SB 1349 prohibit employers, colleges and universities from requiring or asking prospective and current employees and students to disclose social media usernames and passwords. It also prohibits requiring or requesting employees and students to
Maryland recently became the first in the nation to ban employers from asking job applicants and employees for their Facebook and other social media passwords. The law was signed into legislation by Maryland’s Governor approximately one year after the ACLU took on the case of Robert Collins who claimed he was forced to turn over
Last summer we reported that an employer may under California law use GPS devices to track employer owned or leased vehicles. We recently revisited this issue in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in United States v. Jones. Although Jones does address the use of GPS devices to track vehicles, the holding