Online shopping at work not a sackable offence, UK judge rules

Spending less than an hour during work browsing properties or shopping online is not a sackable offence, a UK judge has ruled.

An accountancy administrator has been awarded more than £14,000 after an employment tribunal ruled the time she spent browsing sites such as Rightmove and Amazon was not “excessive”.

She was fired from her job in July 2023 after her employer used spy software to track her computer to find out she had been using it for personal matters.

But a judge ruled the worker – named only as Ms A Lanuszka in the judgement – had been unfairly dismissed from her job, and noted her boss had also used a computer for personal reasons at work.

Employment Judge Michael Magee said that Ms Lanuszka’s dismissal coincided with the permanent move to the UK of the business owner’s sister.

He concluded the owner of the accountancy firm wanted to dismiss Ms Lanuszka before she had accrued two years’ service, the time at which workers can claim unfair dismissal under UK law.

Ms Lanuszka had joined Accountancy MK in 2017, but she signed a new contract in September 2021 when the business owner, Ms Krauze, changed the company’s name.

At some point in July 2023, Ms Krauze placed spyware software on Ms Lanuszka’s computer and recorded that, over the two days of 13 and 14 July, Ms Lanuszka had spent one hour and 24 minutes on personal matters.

However, Judge Magee said in his employment ruling in June in Bury St Edmonds this year that a large proportion of that time had been used for professional development including Excel training, and noted there was no rule against Ms Lanuszka using her computer for personal purposes.

“Ms Krauze did so herself and no policies were shown to Ms Lanuszka indicating that she should not do so,” he said.

“She was free to use the computer personally when work commitments permitted and during breaks.”

Ms Lanuszka had no history of conduct problems and had not received any warnings, he said.

He also criticised diary entries provided by Ms Krauze as evidence of discussions of Ms Lanuszka’s performance issues in 2022 and 2023 because they were written in 2024.