European Court of Human Rights Takes Aim at Employee Monitoring

In a landmark case handed down earlier in April, the European Court of Human Rights (Court) has awarded an employee of a public sector employer in Wales damages and costs because her employer had monitored her personal Internet usage and her telephone call activity. The employee, Lynette Copland, was a personal assistant to the College Principal of Carmarthenshire College (College), a publicly funded body. In the 18 months leading up to 1999, Ms Copland claimed that the Deputy Principal not only had monitored her use of the telephone, Internet and e-mail facilities, but also had contacted some of the people she had communicated with to ask about the nature of the communications. At the time, there was no relevant UK legislation or regulation in place bearing on employee surveillance and the College had no policy in place informing employees that their communications might be monitored. As a result, the Court ruled that the employee had a reasonable expectation of the privacy of her calls and communications made from her workplace. The employee relied on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which provides that "everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence". While subsequent legislation (in the form of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) provided a regulatory framework for employee monitoring, it is of interest that in the absence of such legislation or regulation a judicial body came to the conclusion that broadly framed human rights principles could be interpreted to bring workplace monitoring activity within its scope. For the full reasons for judgment, visit: http://www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2007/253.html Summary by: The Editor