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Articles Employment 2nd Oct 2017

A Date With Data Protection

“The Date With Data Protection” article by Linda Goldman, published in August 2017, is updated below in the light of an important appeal outcome handed down by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in September 2017 with reference to an employee’s right to privacy.

The update on Barbulescu (September 2017) alerts employers to the need to inform employees not only that they are prohibited from using company equipment to send and receive emails but that all personal emails sent and received on company equipment will be read. The ECHR has now held that, unless there are exceptional reasons for not doing so, if an employee is not informed in advance that his improperly sent or received emails will be read, there will be a breach of Article 8 if, as a matter of fact, his emails are read. Thus, the dismissal itself can be maintained as fair but the breach of the right to privacy entitles the employee to compensation.

See here for the original article produced in the Corporate Live Wire, Labour and Employment 2017 Expert Guide.

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