An employer can monitor its employee’s corporate email account

The Court of Cassation, with judgement 26682/2017, ruled as lawful the disciplinary dismissal ordered to an employee who accused of ineptitude and incompetence employees and top management of the company using offending words in several messages sent through his corporate email account. In the specific case, the employee, in bringing to Court the employer’s dismissal, claimed among others failure to adopt the corporate regulations on the use of IT systems. In this respect, the Supreme Court pointed out that the failing relationship of trust was not due to the use of the corporate email account for purposes other than for work, but due to the offensive content of the emails regarding employees and top management of the Company. Moreover, the Court highlighted that the monitoring performed by the employer on the corporate email account of the employee, despite the exceptions of the latter, had to be deemed lawful, since it took place due to an anomaly notified by the system administrator and carried out ex post because of reasonable doubt regarding the existence of damaging conducts outside the performance of the work obligations (that is, damaging the image of the company and the dignity of other employees). Essentially, an employer can perform focused inspections to verify the correct use of the work tools, including corporate PCs, as long as, in order to maintain a balance of interests, this is done in respect of the freedom and dignity of the employee and the principles of fairness, pertinence and non-excess dictated by the privacy regulation.