The Finnish parliament adopted a controversial new law that will give employers the right to monitor employees' emails when wrongdoing is suspected.

The bill, which was approved by 96 of 200 lawmakers, while 56 voted against, was brought about because of lobbying by the phone giant Nokia. 

It is claimed that Nokia had threatened to leave Finland unless the bill was introduced although this is hotly denied. The new law will allow schools, libraries and telecommunication operators that provide information networks to monitor what people do on their computers.

They would not be allowed to read emails but could for example check if an employee had sent an email with attachments to a competitor. The law has been attacked as too vague and it is unlikely to work.

Finnish coppers have moaned that while employers only inform an ombudsman of their monitoring, police currently need permission from a court of law in order to seek out the same information.