News

Bryan Sullivan recently spoke to Fast Company about Anthony Fauci’s public COVID-era diary entries stored on government servers. In the article, titled “What Fauci’s diary leak should remind employees about privacy at work,” Bryan examines legal considerations for employees storing personal information on company servers while providing best practices on protecting private data.

As the article outlines, Republican Senator Rand Paul has consistently and publicly criticized Fauci’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic and his statements concerning the virus’s true origin. While Fauci left his government position in 2022, Paul remained committed to investigating the origins of COVID-19 and Fauci’s use of taxpayer funding for research. A central piece of Paul’s argument is over 1,000 pages of Fauci’s journal entries from the pandemic, which Paul has since released because the entries were on government property.

Bryan examines the relationship between personal information and company devices, illustrating a “universal rule” that “employees have no right of privacy.”

“If you’re going to keep anything personal, you don’t keep it on a work computer, a work system, or a work device in any way,” he tells Fast Company. “The company or the employer owns that, whether it’s the U.S. government or not. You have no privacy when it comes to using work technology.”

Bryan continues to highlight that the legal landscape becomes less clear when an employee uses a personal device for work, or when an employer pays for an employee’s phone service but not the device itself.

“The bottom line is, if you’re using your personal device for work, to the extent that it overlaps, your work will have a right to inspect that device,” he explains.

Bryan also provides practical advice for employees, urging them to review their company’s employee handbook and carry a separate phone for work. He underlines that these handbooks generally contain technology policies, notably whether employees have consented to the company’s right to search their work devices and/or if the company has a provision allowing employers to inspect personal devices used for work.

“Most people don’t even think about it or bat an eye,” Bryan adds. “They’ll save stuff in their own personal folder on their work computers, and use their work email for personal stuff just because it’s there and it’s easier. So, my guess is, [Fauci] probably didn’t even think about this,” he concludes.

Read the full article in Fast Company (subscription required).