A US federal appeals court has rejected the claim of a Montana man who used his work computer to access child pornography that a probe of his machine breached his Fourth Amendment rights against "unreasonable searches and seizures", Reuters reports.

The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that Jeffrey Ziegler "does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy that would bar a search of the machine", citing previous similar cases.

Diarmuid O'Scannlain wrote for the three-judge panel: "Social norms suggest that employees are not entitled to privacy in the use of workplace computers, which belong to their employers and pose significant dangers in terms of diminished productivity and even employer liability.

"Employer monitoring is largely an assumed practice, and thus we think a disseminated computer-use policy is entirely sufficient to defeat any expectation that an employee might nonetheless harbour." ®

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