Unfair dismissal: reasonable expectation of privacy in private information (News, 26 April 2016)

Table of contents

• Impact of this judgment
• Background law
• The facts and decisions of the employment tribunal
• The judgment of the EAT

Article summary

When asked to consider the impact of an employee's right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the first question an employment tribunal must ask is whether the employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the particular information for that right to be engaged. That issue is fact-sensitive. In this particular unfair dismissal case, where the employee was responsible for sending unpleasant emails which brought a private matter into a work situation and was dismissed as a result of personal information obtained from his phone (to which the employer had been given access by the Police following an investigation by them), the employee’s Article 8 right to privacy was not engaged. EAT: Garamukanwa v Solent NHS Trust.