EU Court Calls Employee Computer Monitoring A Human Rights Violation, In Some Cases
from the the-man-is-getting-me-down dept
The European Court for Human Rights has ruled in favor of a woman who sued the British government after her boss in her public-sector job monitored her personal phone calls and internet use while she was at work. While the decision does set some precedent that monitoring employees' personal communications, even if done on work time over work equipment, contravenes the EU's human-rights laws, it also makes it clear that it's only in certain circumstances. Basically, to avoid legal problems, an employer has to have a policy covering acceptable use of its systems and equipment, and that policy has to say that employees' communications could be monitored if it wants to spy on employees' communications. While it seems a little strong to call this a human-rights violation, and it would seem wise to err on the side of caution and assume your employer can or will monitor what goes across their networks, the court's decision doesn't seem unreasonable. If employers want to waste their time trying to find all that lost productivity by spying on their employees, some disclosure would probably be appreciated. If only all potential human-rights violators would be so courteous.
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EU Fundamental rights *NOT* EU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights
"Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence."
There is also a phishing document written by the European Union in 2000. "Charter of Fundamental Rights" designed to confuse you into thinking the EU Fundamental rights come from the European Union, and not a separate agreement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union
Th e EU one is full of lobbyist fodder.
e.g. the privacy is watered from 'privacy' to 'protection of data', i.e. you can spread the data but as long as you protect it. (Article 8)
and this one (from the "Charter"):
"Article 17 The right to property
2. Intellectual property shall be protected."
The non lobbyists "Convention" document doesn't mention this 'intellectual property'.
You can see how the lobbyists had a field day with the "Charter of Fundamental Rights". A document for protecting HUMAN rights has a term tacked on it, primarily designed to protect CORPORATE COMMERCIAL rights.
Don't confuse the two.
Convention = Non EU Commission document that is good and clean and honest.
Charter = EU Commissions lobbyists POS.
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Even SMBs are Exploring this Tech
Employees are spending more time on the job - either at a physical location - or working longer hours via a VPN.
So it does become more likely that those staying longer at their offices may need to resolve personal matters that years ago would be have reserved for after 5pm.
Also, since so much can be done online - people are carving time our of their work day to take care personal billing issues.
However, The Internet and growth of portable storage devices present another dimension for those intent on malicious behavior.
There must be open communication about concerns as well as a fair balance that companies and employees must resolve depending on their critical positions within the company
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Re: Even SMBs are Exploring this Tech
A word of advice to employers: Either give your people the freedom to handle their personal business on the job or cut on the time you expect from them.
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Re: Re: Even SMBs are Exploring this Tech
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Craziness
Its rediculous, besides you are there to work not share your intermost thoughts via email to your partner.
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A decent analogy is the company car. It would be odd to claim that you can drive the company's car anywhere you like without having to tell anyone where you are going. Even further along those lines it would be absurd to expect to run personal errands on company time with a company car.
Businesses generally don't care about running their employee's life. They care about profits. Although the internet does speed up many daily tasks for the office worker it also provides an outlet for time-wasting.
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