On September 5, 2017 , in the case Bărbulescu v. Romania, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the decision of a private company to dismiss an employee after monitoring his electronic communications and accessing the relevant contents, consisted in a violation of Article 8 (Right to respect for private and family life, the home and correspondence) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Grand Chamber has overruled a precedent decision of the 4th Section of the Court of January 2016, which stated that no breach of Article 8 has occurred.
