BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

Apart from the ECtHR’s test of a reasonable expectation of privacy, there is little legislation directly governing the use of social media in the workplace in the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, or Slovakia, and it is seen as an area that employers should regulate through the use of policies. Nevertheless, there are general principles and legal duties that remain applicable even under such circumstances. An employee’s first and last task is to render services on behalf of their employer and to not misuse employer devices for private purposes. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that sometimes calls to one’s partner or children are necessary. It is reasonable that during working time, but especially during break time, one has to deal with doctors, authorities, or other institutions whose office hours are identical with those of the regular working day, and employees simply have no other choice. It can also be asserted that blog postings made outside of one’s employment are part of employee freedom of expression, which is a right that can be exercised freely by an individual unless one makes false statements with the intention of harming the employer. The slowly increasing volume of case law in this area illustrates the way in which human rights, data privacy, whistleblowing, and discrimination legislation impacts this issue. While employers may use social media to source information about employees, they must remain mindful of any parameters imposed by Czech, Polish, Romanian, and Slovak laws. In these harsh times, employers are best advised to put in place clear social media policies, ensure that employees are made aware of these policies (to lower their reasonable expectations), and obtain written consent from employees to any monitoring. On the contrary, they should never request job seekers or employees to disclose user names and passwords in order to log in to private social media accounts in the presence of their (prospective) employer.

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