The California Supreme Court [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] on Thursday that texts and e-mails sent by public employees on their personal devices are a matter of public record when they deal with official business. The court found [LAT report] in its unanimous opinion that communications must be disclosed to the public if they “relate in some substantive way to the conduct of the public’s business.” The court did not provide a clear balancing rule on where such a line should be drawn between employees’ privacy and public record. However, the court did state that information that is primarily personal with only incidental business ties would not be open to public record [LA Daily News report]. Governments have shown concern that such a stance would prove costly and invade the privacy of workers, however those seeking the information have stated that employees are using personal devices as a way to evade public scrutiny.

The right to privacy [JURIST backgrounder] versus the need for public scrutiny has been a highly contested debate over the past year. Earlier this month the US House updated [JURIST report] e-mail privacy laws in regards to e-mail and cloud storage. In October Amnesty International reported [JURIST report] that popular messaging services such as Snapchat and Skype are failing to adequately protect the privacy of their users. In July the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled [JURIST report] that Microsoft was not required to hadn over customers’ emails to the Justice Department.