Watch out that message may not be private!!!!

I came across a judgement in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) dated 12th January 2016 and thought I should share. The terminated employee who was previously classified as an engineer in charge of sales in a private company filed a complaint where he claimed that his right to respect for private and family life, home, and correspondence had been violated by his employer. At his employer’s request, he created a Yahoo Messenger account for the purpose of responding to clients’ inquiries.

The employer On July 13, 2007, informed the employee that his Yahoo Messenger communications between July 5 to July 13, 2007 were monitored and that the records showed he had used the internet for personal purposes. The employee countered in writing indicating that he only used Yahoo Messenger for business purposes at which point the the employer provided transcripts of messages between the employee and family members some of which dealt the health and sex life. The employee was subsequently terminated on 1st August 2007 for breach of the company’s internal regulations which prohibited the use of company resources for personal purposes.”

The employee challenged his employer’s decision at the ECHR. The court dismissed the employees complaint sighting that the employee had been duly informed of the company’s regulations. The court placed on record that it was not unreasonable for an employer to verify that employees were performing assigned tasks during working hours moreso as the employer had access to the employee's account given that it contained client-related communications.

Most local companies have some rules surrounding the use of the communications tools which traditionally would be email and correspondence and as such some companies may have to review these regulations as they may be dated and not contain clauses surrounding social media apps. However, employers need to beware as well given that reading an employee's communication may have implications under the Interception Of Communications Act  depending on how the password was obtained.

Does your organization have regulations surronding the use of personal computers, email systems etc? If so do employees adhere to the policy?