European judges have ruled that employers are entitled to read private communications sent using an employer’s IT system over the internet during work hours.The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that a company that read an employee’s messages sent through Yahoo Messenger while he was at work were within their rights to do so.
The ruling comes as a result of Barbulescu v Romania, in which an employee (Barbulescu) set up a Yahoo Messenger account for professional use and to communicate on behalf of his employers. When he established the account, he had been notified that his communications could be monitored. He was later dismissed after he was found to be breaching use of this account.
