Preventing an ex-employee from accessing your IT system…

A travel company hired an employee but terminated his employment after just 2 months. When the employee left, the travel company failed to block access to their IT systems which meant that their former employee was able to continue to use his password to book holidays for himself and his friends. By the time the travel company discovered what their former employee was up to, he had run up a bill of over £12000.00 holidaying around the world at their expense. All this could have been easily avoided if the travel company had carried out some basic housekeeping tasks when they brought their former employee’s employment to an end. When an employee leaves employment, whether on good terms or bad, a prudent employer should ask the employee to return all company property such as keys, laptops and handbooks to them – the employee should also be asked for passwords and those passwords should then be rendered invalid by the employer. The employer should also disable the employee’s email account and block access to the Intranet as well as any social media accounts. These are simple steps to take and the overlooking of them could result in an employer having serious problems on its hands.

If you require any employment advice or representation, whether you are an employer or employee, feel free to contact Alan Davidson for a consultation: 01756 692 869.

 
Alan Davidson,
Partner, Employment
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