What does monitoring of electronic mail consist of? Is a sporadic look into a specific employee's mailbox in a justified case monitoring? How should employees be informed — before that single look into the mailbox, or should they be informed in general that such monitoring may take place?

ANSWER

Under the common definition of monitoring (understood as constant control, continuous supervision, constant observation), the element of continuity of control will be key here. Accordingly, one-off control actions by the employer consisting of verifying a specific message will not constitute monitoring of mail within the meaning of the Labour Code. This will be "ordinary", ad hoc control by the employer. Of course, nothing prevents employees from also being informed about the rules for conducting it, for example in the work regulations.