EDIT: You've changed your stance from a general stance to a specifically ethical stance here, and I agree: it would be better if employers respected the privacy

EDIT: You've changed your stance from a general stance to a specifically ethical stance here, and I agree: it would be better if employers respected the privacy of their employees more. However, that's just not the world we live in. From the perspective of an employer, you can make your choice to behave ethically regardless of the legal implications, and that's a choice that I would laud you for. But from the perspective of an employee, you shouldn't assume that your employer will behave ethically: on the contrary, I would always assume that your employer is going to go through your computer when you give it back. You can fight that if you want, but that's not the hill I would choose to die on, as there are much worse privacy violations going on. If you want to see how bad things have gotten, freeze your credit, sign up for credit monitoring, and then start applying for jobs, and see what happens. About 75% of jobs I've applied for in the last few years have tried to pull credit reports--and you can't really stop them as long as they do a "soft" credit check (freezing credit doesn't block this).