Plaintiff’s Dropbox account was accessible only with her username and password, which were listed on an excel spreadsheet that she used to store various personal and work-related usernames and passwords. Among the personal photographs were two photographs of Plaintiff’s boyfriend that “could be considered borderline explicit,” as well as photographs of Plaintiff at parties. Importantly, synching a Dropbox account with a device does not save files on the hard drive of that device, rather it provides an access point for files stored remotely in the Dropbox cloud.Īlthough Plaintiff’s Dropbox account was private, CCCTC authorized its use for work-related matters and thus the account contained both personal and work related folders, including personal photographs. Plaintiff’s position required extensive work on her work computer and Defendant Franklin Walk, CCCTC’s Internet Technology Administrator, was responsible for resolving any work-related computer problems, including reloading and re-synching applications on the computer, such as Dropbox.įor those readers unfamiliar with the application, Dropbox is an application that enables users to store files on the “cloud” and access those files using a login on any internet-connected device. Plaintiff was the Executive Director of Defendant Clearfield County Career and Technology Center (“CCCTC”), an educational facility and, importantly for purposes of this case, a public employer. Gibson from the Western District of Pennsylvania partially denied a public employer’s motion to dismiss, permitting the Plaintiff Elizabeth Frankhouser’s claim for Fourth Amendment violations, as well as her state law claim for invasion of privacy, among others, to move forward. This post examines this decision and provides best practices for avoiding issues with employees’ privacy interests. While employers may think that having such a policy would protect them from invasion of privacy claims under the Fourth Amendment or state law, a recent federal court decision may cause employers to think otherwise. Many employers maintain policies limiting their employees’ expectation of privacy in the workplace, including policies that eliminate any expectation of privacy when using company-issued electronic devices.