FRANCE—Monitoring phone bills of protected employees

French courts have an interesting approach to the monitoring of employee phone bills. They tend to consider that the employer is entitled to consult the invoices of telecom operators of professional phones without having to provide prior notice to employees, whereas this would not be acceptable with other forms of employee monitoring such as e-mail monitoring.

This cost control activity is such a routine that it would not even require the prior consultation of works councils. However, there is one key limit, which the Supreme Court reminded in a decision of April 4, when it comes to protected employees. It underlined that the confidentiality of protected employees’ communications has to be ensured by the employer to enable them to perform their mission properly. In order to do so, the protected employees have to be provided with dedicated and not monitored communication means.

The Supreme Court noted that the employer, in the case at stake, by looking at telecom invoices of a mobile phone, was able to identify the people called by the protected employee. The Supreme Court held that it was not compliant with data protection and labor laws.