Companies will need to make sure employees are aware in advance of management monitoring of their work email accounts after a landmark privacy ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.<br /><br />The judges in Strasbourg found the courts in Romania failed to protect a Romanian man’s private correspondence because his company had not given prior notice that it was monitoring his communications.<br /><br />They ruled by an 11-6 majority that Romanian judges, in backing the employer, had failed to protect Bogdan Barbulescu’s right to private life and correspondence. <br /><br />He was fired ten years ago for using a work messaging account to communicate with his family.<br /><br />The company had presented him with printouts of his private messages to his brother and fiancee on Yahoo Messenger as evidence of his breach of a company ban on such personal use.<br />
