Terrible news for everyone who sneakily uses messenger apps at work

We've all done it.

When the day is dragging its arse, you're hung over and work is going slow - you can't resist just having a look on social media. Maybe send a few private messages to pals on WhatsApp or Twitter to arrange beers for the game or a sly Facebook message to the girlfriend not to wait up. But while you think nobody will notice at work, you'd be very wrong. In fact a new ruling by the EU could grant your bosses access to every single one of these sneaky chats you've been having during work time. We're not even joking. It all centres on the case of a Romanian engineer sacked in 2007 after using Yahoo Messenger at work to send private messages to his brother and fiancee as well as professional contacts. His company policy forbid employees from using such apps but the engineer tried to claim his firm had violated his rights to confidential communications, according to a Guardian report. But this challenge got slapped down by the European Court of Human Rights which said it was not “unreasonable that an employer would want to verify that employees were completing their professional tasks during working hours” and added that the company had accessed messages believing they contained professional correspondences. So essentially this ruling has given bosses the green light to monitor workers' private chats in work time. No more slagging off the boss on WhatsApp anymore then gents.