European rights court backs employee fired over private messages, overturning earlier judgment
Romanian man was sacked after being found to have chatted with his fiancée and brother on work messaging system but he argued his employer invaded his right to privacy by spying on messages
Europe’s top rights court ruled on Tuesday in favour of a Romanian man fired by his employer over private messages sent at work, overturning a previous decision with wide ramifications for privacy in the workplace.
The apex body of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) backed 38-year-old Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu who said his privacy was violated when he was sacked in 2007 for sending private messages over the Yahoo messaging system.
The decision on Tuesday by the 17 most senior judges at the Strasbourg-based court in France modifies a ruling in January last year when the court found employers were justified in snooping on their employees.
The judges said Barbulescu’s bosses and Romanian courts had “not adequately protected [his] right to respect for his private life and correspondence”.
In a judgment published on the court’s website, it said it was unclear whether Barbulescu had been warned about the monitoring, or whether he was aware of the extent of the intrusion into his private life.
It also said Romanian courts had failed to determine why the monitoring measures were justified and whether there were other ways of checking on him “entailing less intrusion” into his private life.