Bărbulescu ruling: Workplace privacy is alive and kicking

On Sept. 5, the European Court of Human Rights handed down a landmark judgement about privacy and monitoring at the workplace. The court referred to a case of a Romanian citizen named Bogdan Mihai Bărbulescu who was fired 10 years ago for using a work messaging account to communicate for private purposes and was convicted of doing so through the monitoring of his communications. In a judgment of Dec. 7, 2007, the County Court rejected Bărbulescu’s application and confirmed that his dismissal had been lawful. Bărbulescu appealed to the Bucharest Court of Appeal and repeated his previous arguments and contended in addition that the court had not struck a fair balance between the interests at stake, unjustly prioritizing the employer’s interests.

Source: Bărbulescu ruling: Workplace privacy is alive and kicking