Case law update - November 2019

López Ribalda and others v Spain (Application nos. 1874/13 and 8567/13)

[2018] ECHR 14

Employers who suspect their employees of criminal or unlawful conduct often seek to use surveillance technology to confirm their suspicions, but employers must be careful to comply with relevant employment law and not to infringe employee's privacy rights. In this latest case the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held that the use of CCTV by a Spanish employer to uncover workplace theft on a supermarket floor, had not infringed its employees' Article 8 right to privacy. The monitoring measures used to investigate were necessary and proportionate. Further details of the case can be found here.