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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.

5 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Monitor by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it enough to RTFA to discover whether he was fired for the having non work related conversations during work or for the actual content of those conversations?

    Because I see some difference between monitoring the activity and monitoring the content.

  2. Wait... by EmeraldBot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Before everybody gets in a big huff, this applies only to devices the employer owns and lets employees use, not personal devices employees bring to work. The title here is slanted and a little misleading...

    --
    "Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
    1. Re:Wait... by phishybongwaters · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well you could, and I do, argue this extends to the network, so if you are on your personal device but using THEIR network, the ruling still applies. That said, I really doubt this gives them the right to break encryption or demand the keys. It's not the content of the discussion really, it's about the wasted time they got paid for.

  3. That, and with contractual agreement not to use th by demon+driver · · Score: 5, Informative

    The information presented here is, indeed, grossly miseading. There is no such thing as an employer's right to monitor private communications in the EU; on the contrary, at leastmin some European countries, like, say, Germany, illegitimately monitoring an employee's private communocation may actually land someone in jail.

  4. Misreported by CAPSLOCK2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All reports miss an important part.
    Nobody went out to look at this guys private messages. During the course of an investigation into his performance at work some private messages were discovered. He argued that this alone was a violation of his privacy. The judge decided that the employer did the right thing. The employer was not intentionally looking for private messages and he did not read them when he discovered they were of a private nature.

    This is not a cart-blanche to spy on employee's.