Bosses who use the social networking site Facebook to spy on their employees at work are not breaking the law, Italy's Supreme Court has ruled.
The court ruling found in favour of a printers in the central Abruzzo region which fired a worker when it caught him chatting on Facebook with a woman whose fake profile had been set up by his boss.
The sacked employee had spent 15 minutes chatting with the woman on his mobile using the Facebook Messenger app, failing meanwhile to fix a a jam that had occurred in the printing works.
The printers was within his rights to set up the fake Facebook profile and dismiss the worker as it allowed “the check of continuous illegal behaviour on the part of the employee already observed in the past," the court said.
It also acceptable for employees to monitor workers' use of Facebook from their mobile phones, the court ruled.
The worker had several previous conversations on Facebook during his working hours and an iPad was found on charge in his locker..
