Modern technological development has enabled employers to use increasingly diverse, intensive, and even covert forms of employee monitoring. This thesis focuses on the question of where the boundary lies between still permissible supervision of the work process and an interference with an employee’s privacy which, due to its nature or intensity, may become relevant from the perspective of criminal law. Although the employer has legitimate interests in protecting property, trade secrets, information systems, employee safety, and the effective organisation of work, employees retain the right to personal, communicational, and informational privacy even in the workplace. The Slovenian Criminal Code (KZ-1) protects the right to privacy through several criminal offences that may also come into play in the employment context. These include unlawful personal search (Article 136 KZ-1), unlawful eavesdropping and audio recording (Article 137 KZ-1), unlawful visual recording (Article 138 KZ-1), violation of the secrecy of communications (Article 139 KZ-1), disclosure of professional secrets (Article 142 KZ-1), and misuse of personal data (Article 143 KZ-1). The thesis also addresses the procedural-law issue of the admissibility of evidence obtained by an employer through measures that interfere with an employee’s privacy. In criminal proceedings, a strict exclusionary rule applies to evidence obtained in violation of constitutionally protected human rights. Where, however, the evidence is obtained by a private party, it is necessary to assess the circumstances of the particular case and to balance the affected rights against legitimate interests. A similar question regarding the admissibility of such evidence also arises in employment disputes, particularly when assessing the lawfulness of an extraordinary termination of an employment contract due to conduct by an employee that has the characteristics of a criminal offence.
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