A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

covert monitoring

. An ‘ acceptable-  use policy’ will describe the types of material 

it is not acceptable to access and is also a means of explaining monitoring procedures. It 

does appear that if an employee was disciplined or dismissed for sending too many per-

sonal emails for instance, they would have legitimate grounds to appeal if they had not been 

informed that monitoring was occurring and their managers had not made it clear that this 

was acceptable practice.

Other European countries have different laws on monitoring. Some, such as Germany, are 

much more restrictive than the UK in terms of the level of monitoring that organisations are 

able to perform. Organisations opening offices abroad clearly need to be aware of local vari-

ations in legal constraints on employee monitoring and data protection.