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EU Companies Can Monitor Employees' Private Conversations While At Work (softpedia.com)

Posted by timothy on from the whose-time-whose-dime dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights has granted EU companies the right to monitor and log private conversations that employees have at work while using the employer's devices. The ruling came after a Romanian was fired for using Yahoo Messenger back in 2007, while at work, to have private conversations with his girlfriend. He argued that his employer was breaking his right for privacy and correspondence. Both Romanian and European courts disagreed.

6 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. It's your company's equipment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you want to argue with your girlfriend, use your own cellphone. Jesus.

    1. Re:It's your company's equipment by luis_a_espinal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Interesting. And would you feel the same way about someone who was fired for having AIDS because they were talking with their doctor on the only phone available to them, the one in the office?

      Well, that's kind of a ridiculous argument, a non-sequitur. Employers by and large do not care if you use office equipment to do a call to your wife or doctor, or to do online banking during your lunch break at your cubicle. They care when people continuously abuse it - constantly chatting with your girlfriend, or for watching pr0n, or using the printer constantly to print brochures for your on-the-side job.

      Things like that. That is what both rulings are about. But hey, feel free to believe your slippery-slope hypothetical of one person not having a cell phone and having to use the one and only office phone for a life-n-death event intercepted by the mythical pointy-haired chupacabra boss actually applies to this case.

  2. Well Duh! by thechemic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    9 years later, we have a court ruling on common sense.

    --
    Let's make like a bird... and get the flock outta here.
    1. Re:Well Duh! by killkillkill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they liked the guy's work they wouldn't have fired him. It was probably only a contributing factor and a convenient reason to put on the HR form.

    2. Re:Well Duh! by Tukz · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I would find another job if I found out my employer logged my private conversation without my knowledge.

      If you are going to record and log all my activities, include it on my contract.
      I'll happily sign it, I understand the reason behind.

      But don't do it without my knowledge or consent.
      That's a violation of my right, in my opinion.

      --
      - Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
  3. Time? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I have no problem with some using work equipment for talking to his girlfriend, but if your employer shows a 45-page report of your conversations I think they were trying to say "get off Yahoo Messenger and do some work dammit!" It depends on the time you waste IMHO