Two out of three employers in Poland check their subordinates’ e-mail correspondence and monitor their computers. It often occurs that employers check their employees’ sobriety each day using a breathalyzer, and not only when circumstances indicate such a necessity. At the same time, very few of them inform employees about the methods of monitoring their work.(14-JAN-08)


Written by Agnieszka Chmielecka/ HRH Warsaw
Image by Wikipedia
Source: www.dziennik.pl, PAP

Research published in December 2007 by Hitachi Data System shows that 67% of Polish employers, who make computer equipment available to their employees, monitor their e-mail correspondence (62% in Great Britain, 71% in France). The increased interest of employers in modern forms of supervising employees is confirmed by companies that offer other companies services associated with employee monitoring, as well as by labor unions, which receive more and more signals concerning surveillance in the workplace. Employers however must be careful. Supervision cannot violate the personal property and rights of employees and personal data protection regulations.     

Illegal supervision?
Not all forms of supervision are legal. An employer, who wishes to control the employee’s e-mail correspondence, monitor his/her work on the computer by means of software, or to introduce surveillance of certain rooms, must inform the employees about the form of supervision and establish rules for its use. If he does not do so, the subordinates can wage claims before a court for the violation of personal property or lodge a complaint to the Bureau of the Inspector General for the Protection of Personal Data. The employee, whose personal property was violated, can inter alia demand financial compensation from the employer.     

ECHR: Lynette Copland v. Great Britain
In Poland, there is still no established jurisdiction regarding permissible supervision of employees. The verdict of the European Court of Human Rights of April 2007 in the case of Lynette Copland versus Great Britain (file signature 62617/00) can serve as judicial precedent. In this case the Court ruled that due to the necessity to respect the subordinates’ private life and secrecy of correspondence the employer cannot eavesdrop on the employee’s private telephone conversations and read private e-mails correspondence. Marek Antoni Nowicki, the President of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights: “The Court’s decision is important, as it indicates that employee surveillance must have clear legal grounds.”