Internet use at work

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In many companies, employees have the option of sending and receiving e-mails and surfing the Internet from their workstations. However, only a few companies have a clear instruction from the employer as to whether and, if so, to what extent the employee may use the Internet or e-mail account for private purposes. This is surprising, since the employer may decide unilaterally whether or not to allow private use. It is therefore in the interest of the company and also in the interest of their employees to create a clear regulation.

If there is no regulation in the company, according to the opinion of the Frankfurt Labor Court, judgment of January 2, 2002, Az. 2 Ca 5340/01, the employee may assume that he is entitled to private use of the Internet access, as long as this does not take up a large part of his working hours and does not result in a noticeable cost burden for the employer. Therefore, an employer who determines that an employee is using the Internet access for private purposes may only terminate the employment relationship if the employer has previously issued a written warning to the employee for the same reason and expressly prohibited private use.

However, according to the Frankfurt Labor Court, an employee is not entitled to access and download websites with pornographic content via the company's internet access, even if private use is not expressly prohibited. In such a case, an ordinary termination of the employment relationship is also permissible without a warning. A written warning is not required because in the case in question, the employee had used up a large amount of company storage space to create a collection of pornographic documents over a long period of time. Such excessive and systematic behavior clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that the employee is unwilling to act in accordance with the contract. A written warning might have been necessary if the employee had only visited and saved pornographic pages in a few isolated cases.

Employers are advised to set up clear rules for e-mail and Internet use. Without such rules, employees can assume that they are allowed to use the company's electronic communication systems for private purposes, as long as this does not take up a large portion of their working hours and does not result in a noticeable cost burden for the employer.

The statements represent initial information that was current for the law applicable in Germany at the time of initial publication. The legal situation may have changed since then. Furthermore, the information provided cannot replace individual advice on a specific matter. Please contact us for this purpose.