Monitoring employee emails in the UK, France, Singapore and Germany

This article was produced by Olswang LLP, which joined with CMS on 1 May 2017.

The decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Barbulescu v Romania attracted considerable media interest in the UK. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that an employer’s monitoring and accessing of private messages sent by an employee in breach of the company’s rules and regulations and in the context of a disciplinary investigation was a proportionate interference with the employee’s right to respect for private and family life.

Contrary to some suggestions, however, the decision did not go as far as to give employers carte blanche to snoop on their employees’ private emails at work.

Monitoring of employees’ email is already permitted in the UK subject to a number of regulatory frameworks including the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Information Commissioner’s Employment Practices Code (the “Code”). To find out more, please click here.

In France, there is a strong expectation of privacy in the workplace. French law is rather more protective of employees regarding emails because of the general principle of confidentiality of correspondence. However the Barbulescu decision does not represent a significant departure from French law – to find out why not, please click here for more details.

In Singapore, whilst there is no case law relating to an employer's monitoring of employee's communications, the Personal Data Protection Act regulates the collection, use and disclosure of personal data by organisations in Singapore. To find out more about monitoring in Singapore click here.

In Germany, where an employer expressly prohibits private use by employees of company IT systems, the employer is within its rights to monitor those systems to check compliance - to this extent the Barbulsecu decision is consistent with German law. However it is questionable to what extent the employer would be permitted under German law to look at the content of private emails as this could be deemed excessive.

This article was co-authored by Lakshanthi Fernando, Managing Director of Holborn Law LLC, which is an independent Singapore law practice that works in association with Olswang Asia.