E.U. Your Employer Can Read Your Private E-Mails and Messages While at Work

[engine]

This is a significant ruling by the European Court of Human Rights and applies to all counties in Europe that have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights.
By the way it is reported, it's not clear if we're talking about just the business computer, or whether it includes the employees' smartphone.
If it includes the employees' smartphone that really is moving it on considerably further than it was previously.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said a firm that read a worker's Yahoo Messenger chats sent while he was at work was within its rights.

Judges said he breached the company's rules and that his employer had a right to check he was completing his work.

Such policies must also protect workers against unfettered snooping, they said. E.U. Your Employer Can Read Your Private E-Mails and Messages While at Work [bbc.co.uk]

Clearly, it's important that an employer has a suitable policies made for all workers. Without that the employer may be seen to be remiss, imho.

[RhinoFish]

Good employers, like me, can also read your mind. So you're pretty well fracked no matter what, don't dwell on it. :-)

[RhinoFish]

Yep, you thought what I thought you would there too. Resistance is futile.

[graeme_p]

It looks fairly limited in scope and the case concerned a work related IM account that was supposed to being used for work related purposes. The judges also said employer snooping has to be "proportionate"

[lucy24]

E.U. Your Employer Can Read Your Private E-Mails and Messages While at Work

Did anyone, ever, actually use the words "private email"? That doesn't seem to be what the story-- or its current headline-- says at all.

:: idly wondering if there has ever been a case involving, let's say, love letters sent by physical mail to someone at work and addressed using his professional title, only to be opened and read by a secretary or supervisor in the course of what they thought were their normal duties ::

[londrum]

So instead of the employees doing no work, now we'll have all the bosses doing no work — they'll be too busy nosing around our Facebook and Twitter pages all day (that's what I would do)

[engine]

If you're on the employers' dime you are expected to work for the employer, but he was using a work account to do private activity.

His employer had discovered that he was using Yahoo Messenger for personal contacts, as well as professional ones.

Because it believed it was accessing a work account, the judges said, the firm had not erred.

It's always a grey area because if you use a company phone to talk to your wife/husband/partner you're usually fine. The problem comes when, and i've seen this in some places, the member of staff seems to be head down on their smartphone. Who knows what they were doing, but it certainly didn't look like they were working. As a customer I wasn't pleased about being ignored. I voted with my feet and left the store.
The question is how far should the employer go to check up? Abuse on both sides is possible, but i'm sure that an employer going too far will find their evidence, if brought to court, might work against them for prying.

There has to be a balance: Prying on staff will generate a bad atmosphere and probably won't get the best out of employees. Equally, if an employee knows the rules through their employees' handbook and contract, they will be well aware that spending time not working too frequently will result in some kind of questioning. It should not get so far as to be an investigation into their private messages, imho.

[lucy24]

<topic drift>

As a customer I wasn't pleased about being ignored. I voted with my feet and left the store.

I once had the gratifying experience of finding a supervisor and asking them to help me because the staff person at the relevant counter was busy with a personal call. (I said this in so many words, because it was blatant. This was before cell phones, so they were also tying up the store's own lines.)
</td>

A bad boss* doesn't let employees call home to say they'll be late. (Doesn't matter whose phone it is, since you're on company time either way.) A bad employee takes 15 minutes making the call. Possibly calling from the bathroom, which is gross all around.


* A boss who is both bad and inept will make employees clock out and in again, even if the clocking-in process itself takes longer than the sixty seconds they're taking off.

[toidi]

I didn't know there was an issue with the company looking over the company computer.

[tangor]

US courts have held that company employees have no expectation of privacy on company systems, or permission to use them for any purpose not work related.

Meanwhile, good employers know when to look the other way such as email to family "working late" "how's the kid?" etc. or the phone call for similar purposes.