I'd go further, I think I might disagree with the ruling. When you write under my.name@company.com, you are representing the company to some degree. Things you write are things the company could be called to answer for, if not in the court of law then certainly in that of public opinion. I think the company has an implicit right to know what gets written under those email addresses.
(This is different from, say, browsing the Internet from a work computer, in which case I don't think the company has any non-security reasons to monitor which pages you visit.)
One exception is can see is answering private emails - if my wife or a friend writes to my work address, I can't see any problem with replying from that same address, and it would feel a little silly to require employees to copy-paste the email to a different account.
I don't know if that was the reason this Romanian employee was fired. And now that I think about it, firing an employee over this offence seems comically draconian to me, which makes me wonder if:
a) the employer wanted to fire the guy for unrelated but hard-to-prove reasons, and the personal emails were a convenient and easily documented excuse
and/or
b) the Court aren't actually worried about the right to personal privacy in your work email account, but they are very worried about potentially handing employers a convenient way to fire an employee at any time for the IT equivalent of jaywalking, even years after the fact
If it's (b) I would consider the Court's decision very wise.
edit: just read the PDF linked below. This part stood out to me:
> On 13 July 2007 Mr Bărbulescu was summoned by his employer to give an explanation. He was
informed that his Yahoo Messenger communications had been monitored and that there was
evidence that he had used the internet for personal purposes. Mr Bărbulescu replied in writing that he had only used the service for professional purposes. He was then presented with a transcript of 45 pages of his communications from 5 to 12 July 2007 [..] On 1 August 2007 the employer terminated Mr Bărbulescu’s employment contract for breach of the company’s internal regulations that prohibited the use of company resources for personal purposes.
All potential of abuse aside - If I were an employer, and an employee brazenly lied to my face like that, I would consider it a strong reason for firing him even if the matter at hand were wholly trivial.
> One exception is can see is answering private emails - if my wife or a friend writes to my work address, I can't see any problem with replying from that same address, and it would feel a little silly to require employees to copy-paste the email to a different account.
From the excerpts of the verdict I've read, this is pretty much what they're saying. That is, employers should exercise some discretion when they start reading employee's emails and shouldn't do so on a whim. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
if i send a private letter with a return address of my office, i am not representing the company, even though the company name appears on the envelope. An email domain is no different than a street address.
I'm not sure. The return address is printed on the back of an envelope, whereas the sender's email address is prominently displayed at the top of everything you send.
It's a subtle difference, but IMO a relevant one. I think it's closer to writing a letter on the company's stationery, letterhead and all. Particulary since, in my experience, company email accounts normally add a signature with company's contact information and the sender's position in it.
(This is different from, say, browsing the Internet from a work computer, in which case I don't think the company has any non-security reasons to monitor which pages you visit.)
One exception is can see is answering private emails - if my wife or a friend writes to my work address, I can't see any problem with replying from that same address, and it would feel a little silly to require employees to copy-paste the email to a different account.
I don't know if that was the reason this Romanian employee was fired. And now that I think about it, firing an employee over this offence seems comically draconian to me, which makes me wonder if:
a) the employer wanted to fire the guy for unrelated but hard-to-prove reasons, and the personal emails were a convenient and easily documented excuse
and/or
b) the Court aren't actually worried about the right to personal privacy in your work email account, but they are very worried about potentially handing employers a convenient way to fire an employee at any time for the IT equivalent of jaywalking, even years after the fact
If it's (b) I would consider the Court's decision very wise.
edit: just read the PDF linked below. This part stood out to me:
> On 13 July 2007 Mr Bărbulescu was summoned by his employer to give an explanation. He was informed that his Yahoo Messenger communications had been monitored and that there was evidence that he had used the internet for personal purposes. Mr Bărbulescu replied in writing that he had only used the service for professional purposes. He was then presented with a transcript of 45 pages of his communications from 5 to 12 July 2007 [..] On 1 August 2007 the employer terminated Mr Bărbulescu’s employment contract for breach of the company’s internal regulations that prohibited the use of company resources for personal purposes.
All potential of abuse aside - If I were an employer, and an employee brazenly lied to my face like that, I would consider it a strong reason for firing him even if the matter at hand were wholly trivial.