Section 14 of our Constitution provides that:
Everyone has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have
- their person or home searched;
- their property searched;
- their possessions seized; or
- the privacy of their communications infringed.
An employer is entitled to breach the privacy or secrecy of an employee if it can prove that the employee gave his or her consent or that the said breach was justified by necessity.
Subject to this, in terms of these rights to privacy and secrecy:
· an employer is prohibited from intercepting, monitoring or otherwise acquiring any private conversation, telephonic conversation or other telecommunication of an employee or the video recording of an employee without his or her knowledge.
· an employer may not to divulge to outsiders any personal or confidential information about an employee which is in its possession or which it has acquired (e.g. that an employee is HIV positive). The employee will be protected if the employer discloses his or her personal information.
