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EMPLOYEES WILL HAVE to think twice about using the internet to send private messages during office hours after Europe’s top rights court ruled that companies could monitor workers’ online chats.
The case revolved around a Romanian engineer who was fired in 2007 after his company discovered he was using Yahoo Messenger to chat not only with his professional contacts but also with his fiancee and brother.
Company policy prohibited the use of the messaging for personal purposes.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) dismissed the engineer’s argument that the company had violated his right to confidential correspondence.
The court said it was not “unreasonable that an employer would want to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours”.
Fly Pirates Ⓥ / TwitterAnd all this because Romanian engineer used messenger to talk to his fiancee... ECHR u mad? #privacy
— Cybernaut (^.~)☆ (@Miss_Cybernaut) January 13, 2016
It added that the company had accessed the messages in the belief they contained professional communications.
The judges also defended the decision by Romania’s courts to allow transcripts of the engineer’s communications be used against him in court, saying “it proved that he had used the company’s computer for his own private purposes during working hours”.
By withholding the identities of the people with whom he had communicated, Romania’s courts struck a “fair balance” between respect for privacy and the interests of the employer, the Strasbourg court ruled.
The ECHR’s judgements are binding on countries that have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes Ireland.
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What a wonderful, peaceful ideology.
@George Roche: Did the IRA represent you?
@George Roche: Nothing to do with their religion. Is about money. Do u believe that Trump is about making American great?
Liberalism or Islam?
@Nick The IRA were motivated by a militant republican ideology. A criticism of that ideology would not be considered racist or an attempt to blame all Irish people; why do you treat this citicism differently?
@Vincent Are suicide bombers motivated by money?
@Nick Caffrey: the apologists are out early I see. It’s for this reason we are unable to have a proper discussion on the dangers Islam and it’s teachings. Empty vessels making the most noise as usual
@George Roche:
The term Religion of Peace that gets spouted by politicians such as Obama, Teresa May, Trudeau, I think they were referring to this… http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/attacks.aspx?Yr=Last30
@Vincent:
Islamic terrorists have nothing to do with Islam, is that what you are saying? So when they didn’t receive their ransom for the Canadians, beheading them had nothing to do with Islamic terror?
@Nick Caffrey: you must know nothing about history to make the comparison between IRA and Islamic terrorism
This is a money making operation, they are a kidnapping gang. A Muslim thief doesn’t steal because they are Muslim, they steal because they are a thief. This is different.
These kidnappers are just doing what the Prophet Mohammed told them to do.
Apologists for these Islamic terror groups are strong on the journal. Yet they can’t understand that although they are been used as useful idiots, they are nevertheless infidels who will have to convert and accept sharia or die.The PC brigade can’t accept that a spade is a spade, you can’t change it into a shovel.
Murderous Islamic militants again. Quite busy recently; Paris-Brussels-Nice-Berlin-London-Stockholm, seems to be no place safe anymore. Very tight border controls are now essential to reduce the risk.
I hear Somalia is lovely this time of year, do people not research where they are going on holidays?
That’s not good that they’re that far north now too.
have your say