Rome: Bosses who use the social networking website Facebook to spy on their employees at work are not breaking the law, Italy's Supreme Court has ruled.

The court ruling on Thursday was found to be in favour of a printer who fired a worker when the former caught him chatting with a woman, whose fake profile had been set up by the printer himself, on Facebook.  

The sacked employee had spent 15 minutes chatting with the woman on his mobile using the Facebook Messenger app, failing meanwhile to fix a a jam that had occurred in the printing works.

The printer was within his rights to set up the fake Facebook profile and dismiss the worker as it allowed ‘the check of continuous illegal behaviour, on the part of the employee, already observed in the past’, the court said.

It also acceptable for employees to monitor workers' use of Facebook from their mobile phones, the court ruled.

The worker had engaged in several previous conversations over Facebook during his working hours and an iPad was found on charge in his locker.