European Court of Human Rights · 17 October 2019
López Ribalda v Spain
In plain English
Supermarket staff were filmed by hidden cameras after large stock losses. The Grand Chamber found no violation: reasonable suspicion of serious misconduct justified the covert filming here, though the slightest suspicion would not.
What the court ruled
Holds, by fourteen votes to three, that there has been no violation of Article 8 of the Convention
while it cannot accept the proposition that, generally speaking, the slightest suspicion of misappropriation or any other wrongdoing on the part of employees might justify the installation of covert video-surveillance by the employer, the existence of reasonable suspicion that serious misconduct has been committed and the extent of the losses identified in the present case may appear to constitute weighty justification.
Related
The official text is quoted word for word from the English version of the source named under it; only the version published in the court’s own records is authoritative. The plain-English line is Fino’s own summary, not legal advice.