Last year the German Ministry of Labor set new guidelines to reduce the amount of email sent after hours. As labor minister Ursula von der Leyen put it, “It’s in the interests of employers that workers can reliably switch off from their jobs, otherwise, in the long run, they burn out.” Technology, she added, “should not be allowed to control us and dominate our lives. We should control technology.”

Now, it sounds like the new minister is considering how to create rules for everyone, according to this report from AOL.uk:

As workers become ever more electronically connected, the German government has become worried about the toll on their mental health – and is considering making it illegal to email colleagues after 6pm.

The country’s labour minister, Andrea Nahles, commissioned a study earlier this year which has shown a link between the ‘always-on’ work culture and poor mental health.

“There is an undeniable relationship between constant availability and the increase of mental illness,” she told the Rheinische Post.

“We have commissioned the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to work out whether it is possible to set load thresholds. We need universal and legally binding criteria.”

There have been several studies showing that a habit of constantly answering email at night is bad for your productivity, and carries high (but usually hidden) costs for companies. And a variety of companies have experimented with no-email-after-work policies, and Ferrari has even discouraged email in an effort to get people talking to each other more.