Legal Research

Facebook Surfing Cost Swiss Woman Her Job

A woman in Switzerland working for Nationale Suisse told her employer she couldn’t work at the computer, and had to stay home in the dark.

A fellow employee supposedly noticed her surfing on Facebook and reported her. And yes, it cost her the job.

The employee’s quite plausible position was that she was surfing Facebook on her iPhone in bed. She also accused them of spying on her.

Most workers are becoming aware that privacy controls should be used to protect personal information, even from employers. And persons added as “friends” probably shouldn’t include those that will try to get you fired.

Is the employer required to investigate how the employee was actually accessing Facebook? And if not, are these reasonably sufficient grounds for dismissal?

Considering the already low expectation of privacy of employees in the workplace, does this type of monitoring constitute an unreasonable intrusion?

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on April 25, 2009 (boomark / email).