BlueNosedDog

pppWe’ve all done it, there’s even a term for it, but if caught “Homing from work” (think working from home, but the opposite and you’ll get there) most companies will give you a stiff talking to, and that’s only if they don’t need an excuse to fire you. But what happens if your company fires you, and then realises that you’ve saved your personal email login details on your work machine? Is it right for them to open your personal emails, on the claim that as it’s on a company machine it’s company business?

The New York Times ran a story last week where exactly this happened. A company employee had saved his login details to his Yahoo account on his workstation, and then somehow managed to get himself fired. After being fired he had returned to his office and may not have logged out of his Yahoo account which, if set right, stores your login information for 2 weeks. But here’s the twist, the company claims that although the above may be true, the guy had been seen sending confidential company information and trade secrets AFTER being fired to his yahoo account even though his contract explicitly prohibited him from entering the marketplace for 3 years after losing his job.

Other than the obvious legal questions though, this raises issues of security throughout many smaller companies. Why was the guy who was fired allowed to use company equipment? Why was his account still active? How did he manage to use someone elses machine after being fired? Although he allegedly did something wrong, is that not the fault of the company for not enforcing its own security policies?

It will be interesting to see how this suit pans out, even though it is on the other side of the pond, because it could mean that IT managers accross the world will be forced to re-write their Privacy and Usage policies to explicitly mention Email - in particular non-company provided mail.