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Companies free to snoop on staff
By Jean Eaglesham, Legal Correspondent
Published: October 3 2000 20:28GMT | Last Updated: October 4 2000 00:41GMT
British companies will be able to snoop on employees' e-mails and phone
calls following a government decision to grant industry greater freedom to
monitor staff.
Under rules announced on Tuesday, from October 24 companies will be
permitted "routine access" to any business e-mail and phone call to check
whether they are business-related.
Patricia Hewitt, the minister for e-commerce and small business, said that
proposals to force companies to obtain agreement for most monitoring from
both the senders and recipients of e-mails and phone calls had been
abandoned.
Trade unions criticised the move, saying it gave companies carte blanche to
snoop on virtually any workplace communication. Union officials vowed to use
the Human Rights Act to challenge the snooping rules.
Lucy Anderson, employment rights officer at the Trades Union Congress, said:
"Employers should not be allowed to routinely screen e-mail and phone calls,
and certainly not without consent".
Ms Hewitt denied the rules would allow businesses a free hand to snoop. She
said: "There are limits they must not go over, such as intercepting personal
calls for unjustified scurrilous interest."
The rules would give "any business following them comfort they are not in
breach of the Human Rights Act or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act
[a new law on surveillance for law enforcement purposes]".
It was complex balancing the needs of business with the rights of
individuals in this area, Ms Hewitt said.
"Because it's a complex issue, we have taken time to consult with business
and I am confident the regulations will meet everybody's needs".
Industry groups, which had condemned the earlier proposals as "totally
impractical" and impossible to comply with, welcomed the government
climbdown.
Nigel Hickson, head of e-business at the Confederation of British Industry,
said: "The changes are a big step forward. It is disappointing that the
government did not consult business earlier as we would have liked to avoid
unnecessary conflict".
Lawyers pointed out that employers would have to contend with a mass of
overlapping regulation on monitoring staff.
The Data Protection Commissioner, a government regulator, will publish this
week a draft code of practice on workplace surveillance, covering everything
from e-mail monitoring to the use of CCTV cameras and drugs testing.
Employers, particularly in the public sector, must also conform to the Human
Rights Act.
"Employers will have to juggle a lot of different provisions," said Eduardo
Ustaran, a partner at Paisner & Co, a law firm. "All these changes have to
be managed calmly and without panic - there's a lot of panic around."
The TUC said an early union-backed legal challenge to the new rules was
likely, on the basis that they breached employees' new right to privacy
under the Human Rights Act.
Some lawyers have predicted that the act, which came into force on Monday,
would force companies that routinely screen calls to allow employees access
to unmonitored phones and e-mail for private purposes.
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R. A. Hettinga