tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 Here's one I need some help on - I didn't know which discussion to use so put it here & apologies if wrong. When a school creates an email account with the likes of Yahoo, Hotmail, etc for a member of staff to use in their job - who actually 'owns' the account? The school - or the user? I would say the school especially as I was the one who set it up for the user and used the school name and the department the person worked in in the username. We've got a situation now where a member of our support staff resigned in the summer holiday. They were asked to provide the email password so that the new person could carry on and use the email account. They didn't respond with the password but as I knew the signing up details as I was the one who set up the account, I requested a password change, confirmed the security question details, etc, and was able to access the account. The person who left is now in a strop and threatening to take us to court as we 'hacked' their email account. There's no pleasing some people is there :-) As the account contained personal emails I think this is the basis of their argument. No policy was ever implemented regarding the usage of the account. Where do we stand? I have phoned LEA legal dept. and they'll get back to me... ...any suggestions, similar experiences?
Grommit Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 If you made it up then it is yours.. You should have the secret "word" so you can select "forgot password" and they will email a new password to your email account and then you can access the account They can't take you to court as you set up the account and gave them the password to use the account..
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 You should have the secret "word" so you can select "forgot password" and they will email a new password to your email account and then you can access the account Yeah, that's what I've done and gotten control of the account - hence the ex-employees umbrage...
FN-GM Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 Well doesn’t the company own the address there is probably a term that states that you are only using the address they can withdraw at anytime etc.
Domino Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 And thats exactly what hotmail would do in this case, withdraw the account as it would be more of a headache to sort it out. Do you not have your own email system? If it was given explicitly as a work email they should not have been using it for personal stuff anyway, however if no document to cover this was made/signed then you're stuffed basically.
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 And thats exactly what hotmail would do in this case, withdraw the account as it would be more of a headache to sort it out. Do you not have your own email system? If it was given explicitly as a work email they should not have been using it for personal stuff anyway, however if no document to cover this was made/signed then you're stuffed basically. We have our own email system now - this is going back to five years ago when the college was still in the stone age. Oh, look - where did I just get this email acceptable use policy from...?!?! ;-)
FN-GM Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 Its not going to cost much for your own e-mail system, you can buy a cheap server and the domain name and your away. As for the software use Linux & Apache like I am its free. Also if you do this you will have your own web space.
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 Its not going to cost much for your own e-mail system, you can buy a cheap server and the domain name and your away. As for the software use Linux & Apache like I am its free. Also if you do this you will have your own web space. I know, thanks. But the college went down the expensive route - exchange, etc.
FN-GM Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 don't get into a Windows, Linux, MAC fight lol. Each software has its pros and cons but at the end of the day they do the same job
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 don't get into a Windows, Linux, MAC fight lol. Each software has its pros and cons but at the end of the day they do the same job Yeah, but Exchange is just too expensive.
Friez Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 They legally don't have a leg to stand on since its an email address set up and created by the school, it is therefore your property. If they can prove that it is their property then they will win in court. However THEY CAN'T. How can they prove its their own personal email? If it was for purposes of use by the company (i.e. the school) it is therefore the property of said company, and such data therefore is business to do with the company. Under the data protection act when details/data of a user on a system are no longer relevant such data must be removed. You are therefore complying with another law. He/She is basically a moron, let him/her go to court and incur all the costs since (s)he has absolutely no evidence that it was his/her personal email address nor that it was 'hacked' (which it wasn't). You can buy in / use third party email accounts like easymail, they are your property. Hotmail/GMail/Yahoo/whatever should really be no different. It is an asset of the company and said obnoxious person will not win any legal battle in this case. To save yourself further future agro, get your own in-house email
FN-GM Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 Yes I know what you mean Microsoft complain about piracy maybe if the prices come down then it might stop some people? What new futures does Exchange 2007 compared to Exchange 2003 anything significant?
ICT_GUY Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 Google apps has the option of having email linked to your domain. We use it to give kids a temp email account in year 3 to be used for 3 lessons and then dumped. Works like a charm, and is free. Easy Mail wanted £500 for 100 extra accounts. 8O Still free Gmail but you admin it yourself and have full control over whose email account gets deleted or reused. Its quicker and cheaper than easymail.
Domino Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 I looked at it, and looked good, did play with the idea of using it for kids accounts. I assume it doesn't interfere with your exchange server? mail returns etc?
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 He/She is basically a moron, let him/her go to court and incur all the costs since (s)he has absolutely no evidence that it was his/her personal email address nor that it was 'hacked' (which it wasn't). You can buy in / use third party email accounts like easymail, they are your property. Hotmail/GMail/Yahoo/whatever should really be no different. It is an asset of the company and said obnoxious person will not win any legal battle in this case. It's getting interesting now - the person is now threatening to call in the police. Our legal dept. at the LEA are dealing with it now. Some people are muppets.
Skoggmeiger Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 He/She is basically a moron, let him/her go to court and incur all the costs since (s)he has absolutely no evidence that it was his/her personal email address nor that it was 'hacked' (which it wasn't). You can buy in / use third party email accounts like easymail, they are your property. Hotmail/GMail/Yahoo/whatever should really be no different. It is an asset of the company and said obnoxious person will not win any legal battle in this case. It's getting interesting now - the person is now threatening to call in the police. Our legal dept. at the LEA are dealing with it now. Some people are muppets. Given their lack of expertise in dealing with computer crime, I wouldn't worry about them going to the Police. They won't show an interest.
_Bat_ Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 It's getting interesting now - the person is now threatening to call in the police. Our legal dept. at the LEA are dealing with it now. Some people are muppets. Sounds like you've had a fun day . I doubt they will call the police or anyone like that... they must know they have no chance of winning as they never set it up. What is their excuse?
tech_guy Posted September 5, 2007 Author Posted September 5, 2007 What is their excuse? They're bleating because of the personal email content in the account. Tough - it was set up for work use only. I wonder who I'll upset tomorrow 8O
srochford Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 They legally don't have a leg to stand on since its an email address set up and created by the school, it is therefore your property. If they can prove that it is their property then they will win in court. To save yourself further future agro, get your own in-house email Unless the policy in force when the employee started using it for personal messages, data etc explicitly forbade the use for personal purposes then I suspect the user has got legs to stand on. Even if it's the college's own, in-house, email system then the user has rights. This is the kind of thing where the only people who win are the lawyers - and they'll have a field day if it gets that far!
beeswax Posted September 5, 2007 Posted September 5, 2007 No policy was ever implemented regarding the usage of the account. I suggest you get a policy in place so that members of staff know exactly where they stand, before the same thing happens again. Just let them know this is for school/business use, and is not intended for personal emails. It would also be fair to inform them should a case be raised against the school and it becomes necessary for this email account to be investigated, any personal emails, such as declarations of love towards, or slagging off fellow workers, will also be trawled through.
Friez Posted September 6, 2007 Posted September 6, 2007 You should also make a no liability disclaimer that they have to sign in order to use the systems that you maintain/set up for them Unless the policy in force when the employee started using it for personal messages, data etc explicitly forbade the use for personal purposes then I suspect the user has got legs to stand on. If they have any legs to stand on in a court regarding this, they're most certainly broken ones. In a court a judge would probably laugh at the fact that a staff member is trying to claim that a company resource is infact their own personal property and that its the company trying to 'steal' it from them. The fact of the matter is that this individual has barely any evidence that this is true so they will have an incredibly difficult time trying to hold up a claim like that, let alone get any success in court. Of course that doesn't mean that they won't TRY to sue you, we know people can be incredibly... umm... stupid?
tech_guy Posted September 6, 2007 Author Posted September 6, 2007 Of course that doesn't mean that they won't TRY to sue you, we know people can be incredibly... umm... stupid? Tell me about it - we had a letter from their solicitor this morning....
_Bat_ Posted September 6, 2007 Posted September 6, 2007 Out of interest (I'll understand if you don't wish to answer) what position was this person in?
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