Members of a popular internet forum showed support for one skeptical employee who questioned the legality of their employer's privacy policy.

In a viral Reddit post published on r/antiwork, Redditor u/pretendlawyer13 (otherwise referred to as the original poster, or OP) said their employer's human resources department recently informed staff members that their personal cell phones would be subject to random searches.

Titled, "HR told us they can search our personal phones anytime they want," the viral post has received nearly 21,000 votes and 2,300 comments in the last eight hours.

"Today during an HR meeting employees were told that since we use our phones for work-related things (i.e. phone calls to other employees/managers/customers, texts, pictures, maps)...that our phones can be searched at any time," the original poster wrote.

Explaining that employees are not provided with devices dedicated to company business, the original poster expressed their skepticism for random cell phone searches.

"I don't think this is legal," they wrote. "I think they need a warrant or subpoena if they wanted anything personal from me."

In 2019, popular business media outlet Fast Company took a deep dive into employer-sponsored searches of employees' personal devices in an article pointedly titled, "If you use your personal phone for work, say goodbye to your privacy."

By examining the case of one former Google employee, whose personal cell phone was wiped clean after their firing, Fast...

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