European Court Rules Companies Must Tell Employees of Email Checks (reuters.com)

Companies must tell employees in advance if their work email accounts are being monitored and such checks must not unduly infringe workers' privacy, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday. From a report: In a judgment in the case of a man fired 10 years ago for using a work messaging account to communicate with his family, the judges found that Romanian courts failed to protect Bogdan Barbulescu's private correspondence because his employer had not given him prior notice it was monitoring his communications. Email privacy has become a hotly contested issue as more people use work addresses for personal correspondence even as employers demand the right to monitor email and computer usage to ensure staff use work email appropriately. Courts in general have sided with employers on this issue.

Comments

Re:I work in IT

[dindi]

+1 ...

And why on Earth would someone conduct private business on a company email account.

Now if they sniff my private mails going to my phone through an external provider, or my home email, that would be a different story.

But again, I wouldn't use the company's wifi to even receive private mail or access private stuff. For that, you have your data plan.

And yes, a company computer, a company connection and a company account DOES BELONG to the company, thus should and will be monitored by the company.