Lynette Copland said that her email traffic, internet activity
and telephone usage were all monitored by the deputy prinicipal of
Carmarthenshire College or his staff in a manner that breached her
rights to a private life as enshrined in the European Convention on
Human Rights.
Copland took a case against the Government that the activity
breached her rights under Article 8 of the Convention, which
says that "everyone has the right to respect for his private and
family life, his home and his correspondence". Her case was against
the government because Carmarthern College is a publicly funded
body.
The Government argued that monitoring, which it said was far
more limited than Copland claimed, was justified in order to
determine whether or not she had been excessively using college
resources for personal communication.
"The Court is not convinced by the Government's submission that
the College was authorised under its statutory powers to do
'anything necessary or expedient' for the purposes of providing
higher and further education, and finds the argument unpersuasive,"
said the Court's ruling.
The events took place in the 18 months leading up to November
1999, when Copland claims that the deputy principal of the college
not only monitored her use of phone, internet and email facilities
but contacted some of the people she had communicated with to ask
about the nature of the communications and enquired at another
campus of the college about a visit she had made there with a male
director while she was on holiday.
Copland said that the monitoring was extensive and took place
over a period of 18 months. The Government admitted that monitoring
took place but said that it lasted only a few months. It admitted
that the college monitored dates and times of emails. The college
had no policy in place at the time informing employees that their
communications might be monitored.
"According to the Court's case-law, telephone calls from
business premises are prima facie covered by the notions of
'private life' and 'correspondence' for the purposes of article
eight," said the Court's ruling. "It follows logically that emails
sent from work should be similarly protected under article eight,
as should information derived from the monitoring of personal
internet usage."
"The applicant in the present case had been given no warning
that her calls would be liable to monitoring, therefore she had a
reasonable expectation as to the privacy of calls made from her
work telephone. The same expectation should apply in relation to
the applicant's e-mail and internet usage," it said.
The Court said that the monitoring of Copland's activity was an
interference with her rights, and that that interference was not
"in accordance with the law" as the Government had claimed, and
that therefore there had been a violation of Copland's rights. The
Court noted that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA),
passed after these events in 2000, would have given a framework for
the regulation of employer monitoring of communications.
"The ruling is important in that it re-inforces the need for a
statutory basis for any interference with respect to private
use of a telecommunications system by an employee," said Dr Chris
Pounder, a privacy specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm
behind OUT-LAW.COM. "The lawful business practice regulations
[linked to RIPA] allow an employer to monitor and intercept
business communications, so the Court is implying that private use
of a telecommunications system, assuming it is authorised via an
acceptable use policy, can be protected."
Copland was awarded €3,000 in damages and £6,000 in costs.
Footnote: Dr Chris Pounder was a consultant with Pinsent Masons until September 2008. He now runs a new training business, Amberhawk.
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