Court: Employer Right to Monitor Computer Use Has Limits

A European court says an employee shouldn't have been fired for sending private messages while at work. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) overturned a lower court decision and said the employee's right to privacy had been violated.

However, the court said the verdict was largely about the specifics of the case and that it didn't constitute an absolute ban on monitoring staff computer use, or create a right to private Internet access while at work.

The case involves Bogan Mihai Barbalescu, a Romanian man fired in 2007 after using Yahoo Messenger at work to send personal and intimate messages to his brother and fiancée. His employer became aware of the personal use after monitoring employee use of the work computers. (Source: bbc.co.uk)

Right to Privacy at Heart of Case

Barbalescu took the case through his domestic court system. The Romanian courts ruled that the employer had the right both to monitor the computer use and to fire him. He then took the case to the ECHR, arguing that Romania's courts had not taken into account an article in the European Convention on Human Rights that states "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence."

A panel of ECHR judges rejected Barbalescu's argument by a 6-1 margin. He then asked for the case to go before the court's Grand Chamber. Here, 17 judges review a case and make a final decision with no further grounds for appeal on either side.

No Hard and Fast Rules

The Grand Chamber ruled in Barbalescu's favor. It said the key to its decisions was that the Romanian courts hadn't done enough to check whether the employer had made Barbalescu fully aware that it would be monitoring his computer use while at work. It also said the Romanian courts didn't fully explore whether the employer could have found a way to check if he was misusing the work computer but without accessing the content of the private messages.

The ruling doesn't set an absolute precedent of banning European companies from employee monitoring or firing staff for unauthorized use. Instead, it says national laws should be balanced to take account of the way employers monitor computer use, how intrusive the monitoring is, and how aware the employee is of both the monitoring and the consequences of any misuse. (Source: coe.int)

What's Your Opinion?

Should employers have the right to monitor computer use among employees while at work? Is there a workable balance of showing an employee has sent personal messages without revealing the full content of those messages? Should employers be clearer about what use is acceptable and how this policy is enforced?