The European Court of Human Rights recently ruled that bosses can access employees’ private messages to ensure they are doing their work. Cue panic, outrage and debates about appropriate work and private life balance. The ruling won’t change much though, as communication in business has long since evolved beyond instant messaging.
The ruling came in the case of Romanian engineer Bogdan Mihai Barbulescu, who was fired for using Yahoo Messenger to communicate with his fiancée on company time. He was asked by his employer to use the program to contact clients only. Wildly popular in 2007, instant messenger programs like Yahoo have long since fallen out of favour.
Yahoo Messenger is one of the few still running, though it will likely never return to the popularity it once had. Microsoft shut down MSN Messenger, later known as Windows Live Messenger, in 2014 and moved active users to Skype. The pioneer instant messaging program, AIM by AOL, has been dying a slow, prolonged death as its user base dwindles. The Wall Street Journal warned of the potential pitfalls of instant messaging programs in the workplace during 2004, although their concerns now seem very out of date.
Though the instant messaging program is still used in business, it has taken a slightly different form. Slack’s rise as the workplace messaging program of choice has been swift and decisive. Since its February 2014 public launch, Slack has amassed 1.7m users and is now worth $2.8bn. Basically a searchable chat program for employees, Slack lets users share files and message people organised into channels within a company. It’s free at a basic level, but offers more fully featured subscription tiers too. While not a new idea, Slack’s wealth of expandable tools and friendly interface has made it the leader in the field very quickly. It’s even become a common replacement for internal emails, inspiring popularity among its users not often seen in workplace software programs.
What makes Slack different from the messaging programs of the past is that it’s entirely business orientated, allowing communication only between team members. Unless you could convince your boss to invite your family into the team chat, you simply can’t message them.
Besides, if you wanted to do that you’d probably just use your phone.
The iPhone was released the same year Barbulescu was fired from his job. With wifi commonplace, plus a multitude of private messaging apps offering varying levels of security and encryption available, messaging is now easier than ever. Employers are also currently far more happy and willing to let employees use their own devices at work. It’s referred to as bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, and it has made any attempts to stop personal messaging near impossible.
BYOD systems are popular with businesses as employees are happy to cover the costs of supplying and maintaining their equipment. Employees are happy too because they can use the devices they prefer instead of company-issued machines. Plus, users probably have better equipment than IT departments could afford. Naturally, IT departments have relinquished a lot of control over the use of personal devices. That usually includes what apps are installed.
WhatsApp has become the messaging app of choice for many. The program’s popularity cannot be understated. It was purchased by Facebook for a staggering $22bn in 2014 and had over 900m active users as of September 2015. After some embarrassing security breaches early in its life, WhatsApp implemented end-to-end encryption in 2014. This has made messages virtually unreadable to anyone who isn’t the intended recipient. The move has worried lawmakers, but the upshot is that your boss couldn’t read your messages even with a warrant.
While the threat of an instant messaging window popping up during a presentation has been replaced by an embarrassing ringtone, so has the threat of an employer snooping on your messages. While they may now have the right to read your work messages, it’s likely that they now can’t. Unless they decide to literally peer over your shoulder.