Bosses may lose ‘right to snoop’ on staff’s emails

The European Court of Human Rights has this week handed down an important ruling that could put an end to bosses monitoring their workers’ emails.

Last year the court ruled that it was legal for employers to monitor staff’s work emails and other electronic messages.

The case concerned a man in Romania who was fired after his employer obtained transcripts of conversations he had been exchanging with his brother and fiancee via a Yahoo Messenger account during working hours.

The account was one he had been asked to set up by his boss, who had also warned him not to use it for personal or private matters – it was intended for client inquiries only.

The man claimed that by monitoring his emails, his employer had breached his right to privacy. After losing his case in Romanian courts, he took it to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which also ruled against him.

But he subsequently appealed to the Grand Chamber of the court, and this week it overturned the earlier ruling, agreeing that his right to privacy had been breached. What does this mean for me? The judgement could mean that employers are no longer able to monitor their staff’s emails.

Owen John, an employment lawyer at Darwin Gray, said the decision means that, from now on, simply having an internal policy that allows an employer to snoop on their workers’ emails is not going to be enough.

He said: “Firstly, an employer is going to need to consider carefully why it needs to monitor its workers’ emails. Then, an employer is going to need to explain to workers why, how and where their emails will be monitored and explain how any information gathered through monitoring will be used.

“In other words, far from having an automatic right to snoop on their workers’ emails by virtue of having a policy that says they can do so, an employer will need to be very mindful of balancing its own interests in monitoring emails with its workers’ right to privacy.” What about social media? The ruling has no bearing on social media. However, in July EU data protection authorities said that it should not be general practice for employers to screen their employees’ social media profiles.

However, according to research published last year, 43% of recruiters check candidates’ Facebook pages when screening job applications, while 87% check LinkedIn profiles and 22% also check Twitter

Many workers are also friends with their bosses on Facebook or followed by them on Twitter, making it difficult to keep their private lives away from their employers – although bosses are not allowed to force their employees to accept friend requests.

In legal terms, it is not necessarily the case that employers are allowed to use information they find on their staff’s social media pages – even if this information is counted as being in the public domain – but in practice, many employers do so.

Will this ruling be affected by Brexit?

No. Despite some people getting them confused, the European Court of Human Rights has nothing to do with either the European Union or the European Court of Justice.

It’s the court for the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been adopted by the 47 members of the Council of Europe.

Britain will continue to observe the Convention after Brexit, despite reports last year that Theresa May wanted to pull out.