The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that companies are allowed to monitor employees' Internet activities, including online chats, provided they have been warned beforehand that the private use of company resources is forbidden. Because this decision has been handed down by the ECHR, the highest human rights court in Europe, the ruling can affect almost every state in Europe (everywhere except Belarus and Kosovo).

This is the result of a case brought by a Romanian engineer, Bogdan Bărbulescu, who was fired for using a company's Yahoo Messenger account to chat with his fiancée and brother.

Bărbulescu had brought his case to the ECHR because he claimed his dismissal was unfair, alleging "his employer’s decision to terminate his contract had been based on a breach of his right to respect for his private life and correspondence and that the domestic [Romanian] courts had failed to protect his right."

The engineer's argument was that "the Yahoo Messenger software was by its nature designed for personal use and that the nature of the instant messaging service had entitled him to expect that his communications would be private. Had he not expected privacy, he would have refrained from disclosing intimate information."

However, the ECHR noted in its ruling that "it is not disputed that the applicant’s employer’s internal regulations strictly prohibited employees from using the company’s computers and resources for personal purposes." Moreover, the Court found that "it is not unreasonable for an employer to want to verify that the employees are completing their professional tasks during working hours."

The fact that the employee had been informed that he was not permitted to use company resources for personal purposes played a large role in the decision. That meant Bărbulescu could not claim it was a breach of his human rights for his employer to check on what he was doing. Moreover, the evidence showed that he had in fact been using the company's Yahoo Messenger account for personal matters, in breach of the company's internal regulations, which made his dismissal lawful.

The key element here seems to be the prior warning that personal use of company resources is not permitted. Once that has been given, the employer may then monitor any of those resources to check that employees are not breaking the rules. The lesson therefore seems to be that you should always use a mobile Internet service that you are paying for if you want to keep communications private while you are at work.