Not if you're living in one of their cells.

Your employer pays for slack and it is a work related tool, just like your emails. If you want to have private communications then send a text. BTW they can also search your desk because, you know, it's not yours.

what about, lets say, conversations in the company owned cafeteria? can the employer record them without your consent and use as evidence against you?

Depends on the state I would assume, but of course IANAL. Some states have single party consent, and you're certainly not in a private area. You'd have to look into the eavesdropping laws where you live. You realize that many buildings have security cameras, right?

I'm still very confused as to why you believe that your communications over a company owned platform should/would be private.

>> I'm still very confused as to why you believe that your communications over a company owned platform should/would be private.

Is this a generational thing? When I got my first job, there were cultural norms about not making personal calls on the company phone (this was a time when people still used paper for memos) or using company resources like copiers.

While I realize times have changed and things appear much more relaxed today, I don't understand why people would even think to use company owned devices/servers/resources for personal stuff for anything short of an emergency.

because I dont see the difference between having direct conversation vs having electronic conversation in the office premises. why would there be different rules for them?

Well, one is a platform provided specifically for work related communications (again, like your email). Also, read the above linked article which discusses wiretapping:

>employers are given an exemption for calls made “in the ordinary course of business.” Courts interpret this to mean that employers can eavesdrop on all business telephone calls but cannot listen to or record messages it knows are personal.

Also:

>ECPA also applies to audio monitoring of the workplace. Employers can install recording devices in any location that is used primarily for work. But employers may not conduct audio recording of nonworking areas such as cafeterias, break rooms, or locker rooms. In practice, this means little because employers are not required to notify employees that they are being recorded and employees are unlikely to discover the hidden microphone.

So there is an obvious legal distinction between communications which are intended to be work related and those which are not. In your cafeteria example, no, they should not (assuming this article is the entire story.) However, your slack messages are not considered the same as a cafeteria conversation.

Again, I'm not a lawyer and have zero real knowledge here, but I think it's silly to expect privacy in your work provided messaging system.

Because one of them is almost literally a paper trail and the other is ephemeral?

But if you record the ephemeral, there is essentially no difference.

They aren't supposed to in the US. See the "Audio Monitoring" section of this ABA article [1].

Here's another article with more information on a state by state basis [2].

[1] https://www.americanbar.org/publications/human_rights_magazi...

[2] https://www.upcounsel.com/audio-surveillance-laws-by-state

They aren't searching your apartment. They're searching the office you use in their building.

Your employer owns the data, not you. The owner of something doesn't need special permission to look at it. It could be a company provided computer, email, or filing cabinet; they all belong to your work and they do not need to ask anyone to get in and look at the contents.

Even something that has a reasonable expectation of only containing personal belongings (eg. a locker) may or may not be protected from employer search as each state in the US has slightly different rules.

For work related tools, the rules are almost entirely stacked towards having no right to privacy whether a company policy exists or not.

How can a personal conversation be a "data". you mean they can potentially sell my personal conversation with a friend as if its a company owned data?

> you mean they can potentially sell my personal conversation with a friend as if its a company owned data

Don't do it on company slack then?

Whether or not this news is a surprise to you, you must already be separating concerns. At most competently run places emails/chat logs etc are logged.

Assuming you and your friend both work at the same company using the same Slack Workspace and someone would be willing to pay for the data? Yes, it is a possible scenario. I have no idea why a company would offer to sell it's employee chat logs but I am sure there's a more clever individual out there who can think of reasons.

Because the company you work for owns and pays for the platform you're using.

Just like they presumably own the computer you use, and any other platforms/equipment supplied so you can do your job.

they don't however, need to provide a warrant for their own apartment. that's effectively what slack is implementing, it does not mean that they can go through your personal slack setups. just fyi, any application that is provided by your employer is theirs and most likely in your contract is that everything you say or write is their own property.

if your mobile is paid for by your employer, they have access to anything on that as well, this include texts, mms, and call logs.

If you are employed in the US, your information and device use policy is very likely to say that, or your HR handbook, that you agreed to when you are hired.

It's not your personal property.

Privacy is important, even in the workplace