Privacy at work: Interception of employee's office telephone calls unlawful

In Halford v United Kingdom [1997] IRLR 471, the European Court of Human Rights holds that the Merseyside Police Authority violated the right to privacy of its assistant chief constable under the European Convention on Human Rights when it tapped her office telephone calls for the purposes of gathering information in order to defend a sex discrimination complaint she had initiated. No warning had been given to her that calls made on her office telephones would be liable to interception, and so she had a reasonable expectation of privacy for such calls.