The Inner House of the Court of Session in Scotland has upheld a decision that the Police force did not breach its officers’ rights to privacy when it brought disciplinary proceedings against them based on messages from two private WhatsApp chat groups they were members of. The messages were discovered on a colleague’s phone during an unrelated criminal investigation. The Court ruled that the officers did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the messages taking into account its inappropriate content and the fact that the officers were bound by professional conduct rules which they had clearly breached. The Court made clear that it considered that the standards and regulatory framework to which police officers are subject put them in a different category from ordinary members of the public; the usefulness of this judgment to employers is likely limited to situations where the regulatory backdrop has reduced expectations of privacy. Ordinary employees who are not subject to the same degree of professional conduct standards will have a higher expectation of privacy.