> The policy the employee accepts, and to be honest not enough employers explain these policies, should be the starting point of determining what is allowed and what isn't to a certain extent.
While true, we also have a "right to a private life" under Article 8 of the ECHR (where many rights protect you from employers as well as the State, including this one). When your spouse, or your doctor, calls you with an emergency on your company phone because they can't reach you on your mobile for whatever reason, should your employer have the right to know intimate details of your private life or health?
The answer we came to is "no", whereas the US might come to "yes" as its constitution only covers a very narrow definition of privacy which doesn't take into account many modernities.
So widespread, aimless listening on work communications, in the majority of cases, is probably against the law across the EU due to the above argument. Proportionate and limited listening is allowed - for example, if you wanted an alert every time someone accessed Facebook as using it for personal use is against policy, you could do that, but you couldn't go and read all their private chat messages and posts whatever your policy says (unless you have a reasonable belief the account was supposed to be work-specific - for example, you specifically authorized this specific account - and you accidentally stumble across something personal, or that the employee is e.g. sharing trade secrets through Facebook).
While true, we also have a "right to a private life" under Article 8 of the ECHR (where many rights protect you from employers as well as the State, including this one). When your spouse, or your doctor, calls you with an emergency on your company phone because they can't reach you on your mobile for whatever reason, should your employer have the right to know intimate details of your private life or health?
The answer we came to is "no", whereas the US might come to "yes" as its constitution only covers a very narrow definition of privacy which doesn't take into account many modernities.
So widespread, aimless listening on work communications, in the majority of cases, is probably against the law across the EU due to the above argument. Proportionate and limited listening is allowed - for example, if you wanted an alert every time someone accessed Facebook as using it for personal use is against policy, you could do that, but you couldn't go and read all their private chat messages and posts whatever your policy says (unless you have a reasonable belief the account was supposed to be work-specific - for example, you specifically authorized this specific account - and you accidentally stumble across something personal, or that the employee is e.g. sharing trade secrets through Facebook).