We have over the last two years begun to use Twitter and Facebook as a big communication tool with our customers, with live chat going on around specific events. We have issued a policy for staff but are unsure how best to regulate staff participation in these communications from their private accounts, as we were concerned that to prevent communication from their own private accounts might be an infringement of staff individual rights outside work.

As social media (which includes Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, other forms of blogs and YouTube) becomes increasingly popular, employers are beginning to explore how this new form of communication affects the workplace and to what extent restrictions contained in a Social Media Policy may affect the employees’ rights to freedom of expression and the right to respect for his/her family life and correspondence, as protected under European legislation.

We would recommend that a Social Media Policy should have two distinct sections: firstly dealing with those who post on social media as part of their employment and secondly (and relevant for this query) those policies that deal with what