My boss hacked into a whistleblowers email acct now on front of computer??

[Wallaby Dan]

What part of, she has left and now they continue to monitor and replicate her personal emails, and regularly log into her face book account are you not understanding?
__________________

She is gone they no longer have the right to invade privacy. Up to where they fired her they had the right.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Unfortunately that is not what the law says. The account can be monitored as long as it exists.
She needs to just make a new account, it's easy to do.

---------- Post added at 03:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:11 PM ----------

That's insane. Where did you get that?

Sitton v. Print Direction, Inc. (Georgia, September 2011)

and possibly Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group (New Jersey 2009)

Take-Away

If the employer owns the system, hardware or both, the employer can monitor employees' use of it, including personal files and communications.

If the employee owns the system and hardware, the employer's ability to view and obtain personal files depends on the whether the employee is using it at work, whether the employer has a legitimate interest in viewing the communication, what the state's laws and employer's policies are, and what the employee's objective expectations of privacy are.

 

[Wallaby Dan]

She needs to just make a new account, it's easy to do.

That would be the simple thing to do , And she must be a dumb blonde not to!! I would have done that from the get-go after being fired!!

 

[AMD_man]

Sitton v. Print Direction, Inc. (Georgia, September 2011)

and possibly Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group (New Jersey 2009)

Take-Away

If the employer owns the system, hardware or both, the employer can monitor employees' use of it, including personal files and communications.

If the employee owns the system and hardware, the employer's ability to view and obtain personal files depends on the whether the employee is using it at work, whether the employer has a legitimate interest in viewing the communication, what the state's laws and employer's policies are, and what the employee's objective expectations of privacy are.

"We first note that the evidence fails to show that Stanton's use of Sitton's computer was “with the intention of” performing any of the acts forbidden by the statute.   Stanton did not, nor did he intend to:  take, obtain, or convert Sitton's property (computer theft);  delete any computer program or data, obstruct or interfere with a computer program or data, or alter or damage a computer, computer network, or computer program (computer trespass);  or examine Sitton's personal data (computer invasion of privacy).   Thus, Stanton's actions do not fall within the scope of subsections (a), (b), or (c) of OCGA § 16–9–93."

Personal data cannot be examined.

"Sitton's reliance on Pure Power Boot Camp v. Warrior Fitness Boot Camp 10 is misplaced.   In that case, a former employer hacked into its former employee's e-mail accounts without authorization. In the case before us, the trial court did not find evidence of hacking.   Instead, the court found that, when Stanton moved the mouse, the e-mail account appeared on the screen of Sitton's computer.   Sitton challenges this finding, but because there is evidence to support it, we will not disturb it on appeal. Because Stanton's actions were not taken “without authority,” the trial court did not err in denying Sitton's claim under OCGA § 16–9–93."

Hacking is obviusly not allowed.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

She needs to make new accounts and move on with her life.

 

[AMD_man]

She needs to make new accounts and move on with her life.

C'mon, you made me read the stupid trial. And you made me copy-paste. And you made me bold the best parts!

 

[root]

Hmmm,
I think that the law would be for lawyers to decide...

Here is what is known, a person who uses a computer at work usually agrees to an information security policy, and that would normally involve monitoring what the employee does and agreeing to (and not to) do certain things.

Monitoring would normally be restricted to simply looking at the url that a person visits, not decrypting and reading emails.

Besides that is not the case here.

Here a company is continuing to read emails, and presumably read history of emails.
Even if a company was legally able to read a persons email that they sent during work time that is NOT what is happening here.
Here an ex-employer is using a cached credential to read all emails in an account (including ones not sent using company property) and to duplicate all future emails, -even if the employer had a right to intercept and inspect personal communications sent on work machines, that right does not extend to the future (after employment is terminated) it is limited to communications sent on the work devices.

As the person has been terminated for a while, the right to look at stuff that an employee uses a company machine to do is clearly not being invoked here, emails sent today are being copied to company servers, the person is not an employee any more and is clearly not using company property to either send or receive emails today. -the employer is breaking the law.

The same is true of Facebook, sure the company has a right to know what you are using company time and resources for, but she is no longer using either company time or resources. -the company is breaking the law...


She does not need to get a new email account and move on.

That is stupid advice, she needs to decide how she will play this, either she should seek proper legal advice, (and this may mean leaving everything as is to continue to show sustained access)

Sustained access can be proven by looking in the settings (on both yahoo and Facebook and looking at logged in devices, -you can see what devices are logged on, and where from. -continued sessions from her old employer will prove they are intercepting her private communications.

Or she needs to let it go and just log in and change her password, changing her password will destroy all existing login cookies on the server part. This would mean the employers access would be halted immediately.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

All she needs to do is what she wants to do.

I'd either change passwords and keep accounts or (my preference would be) make new accounts and not be reminded of the time she worked at that job.
Make a clean break from it. ( not a clean breast of it as she has nothing to admit to).

Whatever she does (or more likely has already done) I hope things work out and she finds a new job she loves doing for a company she wants to help succeed.

 

[AMD_man]

finds a new job she loves doing for a company she wants to help succeed.

That's like the American dream adapted to real life.