Law Letter
Duty to respect the employee's privacy
Now a days it has been observed that the corporate houses take mobile sim/s under corporate package for their employees. It is cost effective as such the corporate houses, in lieu of paying cash incentive as mobile facility, provide a certain amount of ceiling to their employees through the corporate packages. But the astonishing fact is that the corporate houses through the said sims collect Call Details Record (CDR) and location status from the mobiletelephone services provider. Here lies the question of personal privacy.
Though the owner of the sim is the corporate house, it relates to a fundamental right of personal privacy of individuals. This is a clear violation of the right to privacy and Article 43 of the Constitution which states that "Every citizen shall have the right, subject to reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interests of the security of the State, public order, public morality or public health- (a) to be secured in his home against entry, search and seizure and (b) to the privacy of his correspondence and other means of communication."
In addition it can also be noted that: There are three main aspects to privacy in employment. The first aspect concerns the employee's right to know what information is held about her. The second aspect concerns the privacy of information about the employee; and the third is about non-intrusion into the employee's private life. This sort of collection of CDR by the corporate houses to their employee does not only infringe the privacy of the person who owns the telephone, it also affects anyone who calls or is called by that person.
In Halford v UK (1997) the European Court of Human Rights rejected the government's argument that employees should have no general expectation of privacy for their telephone calls at work and that an employer should be able to monitor calls without due process.
The time has already come for BTRC to take initiative to prevent the corporate houses from getting the CDR of any of her employee's in an authorized manner. If it is undertaken in an unauthorized manner then it is illegal and will result in prosecution of the person responsible for breach of privacy.
BTRC needs to instill this fear in the minds of the corporate employer so that they refrain themselves and at least think 100 times before using technology for their vested interest.
Nahid Absar
LLB (Hons) LLM, Chittagong University
