The government’s Lawful Business Practice Regulations come into
force on 24th October. They provide that businesses can monitor
(but not record) communications for the purposes of checking
whether or not communications are relevant to the business and
monitor calls to confidential, counselling helplines run free of
charge.
The Regulations require businesses to "make all reasonable
efforts" to inform those people who use the organisation's telecoms
systems that interceptions may take place.
The Data Protection Commission’s guidelines on surveillance are
more restrictive. Among other recommendations, they state: “Do not
open e-mails that are clearly personal”. They also state:
"Unless there is some evidence that the use
of e-mail poses a particular risk to trade secrets, the
organisation is particularly vulnerable and e-mail monitoring is
part of a package of carefully considered measures to tackle the
problem, it is difficult to see how routine monitoring can be
justified. Where monitoring is justified limit it to the e-mails of
those employees who actually have access to the trade secrets."
David Trower, strategic policy manager at the DPC admitted to
FT.com, “perhaps the communication between us and the DTI could
have been better."
He suggests that the two sets of guidance should be viewed as
two separate hurdles to clear, as opposed to being contradictory.
The DTI has said that it sees the two sets of guidance as sitting
“seamlessly side by side.”
