Controversial bill passed
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.