A man in Romania had been fired for using his work account to send private messages on Yahoo Messenger.
However, the European Court of Human Rights stated that the original findings of the Romanian judges had not protected the man’s rights to privacy. In particular, the company had not given sufficient notice to its employees of the extent to which they were being monitored.
The employer had read and made copies of the private messages to support its argument for terminating the employee.
The decision shows that employers need to be very clear about their policies when it comes to monitoring staff.
Sources: BBC News; The Next Web.