http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT39YW11WDC&liv e=true&tagid=YYY9BSINKTM&useoverridetemplate=IXLZHNNP94C 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. --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'