Court rules that bosses can read employee's private messages at work

It's after a Romanian man was fired for messaging his family in 2007.

Published 14th Jan 2016

Bosses can read their employee's private messages sent at work, a court has ruled.

The European Court of Human Rights dismissed a Romanian man's argument, who claimed he had a right to privacy, after he was fired in 2007 for using Yahoo Messenger to talk to his family.

Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu had to create the account for work but was found to be messaging his brother and his fiancée after his employers monitored the messages. They said he'd broken company policy - which banned the apps for being used for personal conversations.

Judges said firms had a right to check that staff are doing their job in certain circumstances and during work hours but that employees do have a right to privacy.

The court also ruled that unregulated snooping from bosses is unacceptable and said that companies should have clear rules.

The ruling applies to all EU countries, including Britain.