Your boss is now allowed to monitor your messages

Gossip, jokes and making comments about the boss are the foundation of every single job since the beginning of time, but the European Court of Human Rights seem to disagree. From today, employers are have the right to monitor their employee’s private messages – at least if you’re using a work device.

The ruling was made in France based on the case of an unlucky Romanian engineer. He was fired after being caught chatting to his brother and fiancée on Yahoo Messenger (what is this?) during work hours. The court said: “It proved that he had used the company’s computer for his own private purposes during working hours”.

According to the court, it’s “not unreasonable that an employer would want to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours”. The judge dismissed the employee’s right to privacy on his messenger and ruled that what he sent could be monitored by his boss.

What you can’t do:

Use work equipment and accounts to send non-work related messages, like the fired Romanian employee.

What you can do: 

Carry on using your own private accounts. Thankfully law from the European Court of Human Rights isn’t completely enforced over here, it just has to be taken into account.

Don’t send messages while you’re supposed to be at work