RE: [SAGE] Canadian law regarding personal accounts of terminated employees?

[John LLOYD <JAL@mda.ca>]

The following is not a legal opinion.  

Forwarding email without notification to the senders could turn out to be
very embarrassing for the employee, and for the employer too for that
matter.  Job solicitations, other (!) forms of solicitations, and personal
opinions intended for the addressee (rather than the supervisor) could turn
up, and then what is the supervisor to do?  Act on messages that are not
intended for them?  

Suppose, just for entertainment purposes, the ex-employee's divorce lawyer
sends a message complete with one of those lengthy disclaimers about not
reading misaddressed email.  The supervisor just put their employer into a
legally risky situation by accepting legally privileged e-mail.

The best policy is: when the job stops, so does the email address.  Period.


There are also privacy arguments that suggest disclosing the end of the
(employment) relationship between the person and the provider of their
e-mail address is not a good thing either.  I am referring to messages that
say "Joe Bloggs no longer works here".  Just what Joe's banker needs to see
while Joe seeks out a new job.




--John





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew G. Hammond [mailto:drew@xyzzy.dhs.org]
> Sent: October 21, 2003 7:25 PM
> To: sage-members@sage.org
> Subject: [SAGE] Canadian law regarding personal accounts of terminated
> employees?
> 
> 
> Hi, I'm sure this question has been asked numerous times, but 
> I haven't 
> been able to find an answer. What is the law as it applies to 
> personal 
> email accounts of former employees? For example:
> 
> Assume that John Doe leaves Widgets Inc. As an admin, what 
> are the legal 
> issues (if any) I need to be aware of regarding the 
> john.doe@widgets.com 
> email account? Defacto company policy has been to allow or at 
> least turn 
> a blind eye towards personal use of email accounts (within reason 
> obviously).
> 
> Can I legally just forward that email to their former 
> manager? This is 
> what I have been asked to do.  I don't like the idea since 
> the account 
> is based on a proper name and has been used for personal email.
> 
> Does anyone know what the law in Canada is on this subject, 
> or where it 
> can be looked up? Are there professional ethics which specifically 
> address this issue?
> 
> Drew
> 
>