The Information Commission, formerly known as the Data Protection Commission has delayed their draft publication of their employment code stating that monitoring of staff's e-mail messages could in fact be contravening the rights to privacy under the law.

A draft document is available on the commission's website but this does not include any guidance concerning software filtering tools as e-mail filters would need to analyse data within attachments and by doing this, could affect individuals rights to privacy.

The advice that the commission recommends at this moment to organisations is that they only monitor staff if they find a need to do so. The commission will continue working on what advice they should provide firms regarding how employee e-mail and internet use should be monitored.