Employment disciplinary question

Shoza · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:20

I have a question after being suspended for something I felt wasn't something worthy of being suspended for.

We have a large completely open SQL database that everyone at work has full access too and uses on a regular basis. I often use the search functions to look up old documents or correspondence for clients, educational needs or research.

I came across some documents by chance which were viewed automatically with a "viewing pain" within Outlook. These documents I have since been told are private and confidential and I shouldn't have been looking at them, hence the suspension for breaching the firms policy.

My question is how serious a issue is this and also what affect on my suspension would the fact that we don't have any staff manual / it manual available to employee's?

Thanks for your help.

Shoza

Deleted member 77746 · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:24

Shoza said:
I came across some documents by chance which were viewed automatically with a "viewing pain" within Outlook. These documents I have since been told are private and confidential and I shouldn't have been looking at them, hence the suspension for breaching the firms policy.

You come across these documents by chance. Erm, care to explain alittle bit more?

Shoza · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:27

I was searching for a precedent document for a client and used SQL to query the database for certain variables. The results came (100's) and I clicked through them to find something suitable.

[TW]Fox · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:29

What did they say when you explained this to them?

Deleted member 77746 · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:30

[TW]Fox;18290760 said:
What did they say when you explained this to them?

Yeh, if yo uexplained this too them it was an accident. They might just want to get rid of you. Are you in a union?

D18241 · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:43

sorry but if the files was that important they would be password protected

Haggisman · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:44

Perhaps point out the fact that if these documents are so sensitive they should at least be encrypted, and remind them that the company probably wouldn't want their customers somehow finding out how careless they are with private information?

Housey · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:49

I find with such disciplinary procedures the employee has to be asked several times before you get to the actual facts of an incident...

PhillyDee · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:50

Haggisman said:
Perhaps point out the fact that if these documents are so sensitive they should at least be encrypted, and remind them that the company probably wouldn't want their customers somehow finding out how careless they are with private information?

Great way to find yourself sacked! Never try and blackmail them, it really isn't worth it in the long run!

Castiel · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:53

Housey said:
I find with such disciplinary procedures the employee has to be asked several times before you get to the actual facts of an incident...

There must be more to this, you rarely get suspended for simply viewing something by accident if it is not encrypted in some way and he broke that encryption.

AJK · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:07

Castiel said:
There must be more to this...

Totally agree, can't imagine even the worst of useless employers raising a disciplinary for viewing information you had no way of knowing you shouldn't be looking at!

DiscoDave · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:08

I don't see why you would recive a discipllinary for stumbling across confidential data from a database search with no specific intention to view such information.

What was the search criteria?

Sounds like they're talking rubbish to me. If there was confidential data in your company database there would be access control levels, encryption, data leakage prevention.

Danthus · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:11

DiscoDave said:
What was the search criteria?

SELECT * FROM secret_confidential_table

Pawnless Endgame · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:12

Show them where you found the documents in Outlook (presumably in public folders), and see if they can find a clearly written warning that says "no peeking!". Or were you opening somebody else's mailbox? A guy did that to me in my old work, because for some reason my mailbox was accessible by everyone. I wasn't aware of it until someone pointed it out and then told me how to lock it down.

eatcustard · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:13

Sell them to wikileaks

[TW]Fox · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:14

OldCoals said:
SELECT * FROM secret_confidential_table tbl

left join secret_client_database lolz on lolz.client_id = tbl.client_id
WHERE doc_type = private and lolz.client_name = 'Celebrity'
order by lolz.client_name

Housey · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:17

The amount of time wasted these days by employees using chat, Facebook, personal email, Twitter etc. is astonishing as is their attitude when you pull them up on it and tell them to get some bloody work done!

Deleted member 77746 · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:23

Housey said:
The amount of time wasted these days by employees using chat, Facebook, personal email, Twitter etc. is astonishing as is their attitude when you pull them up on it and tell them to get some bloody work done!

I agree. I get calls regards to FB problems and I get annoyed because I no they are using it in work time.

Housey · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:24

iDroid84 said:
I agree. I get calls regards to FB problems and I get annoyed because I no they are using it in work time.

It's also the stupidity of people that amazes me when they don't appreciate just how much a switched on business can see of what they do and say, even more so within the IT sector.

Fr0dders · 22 Jan 2011 at 21:25

Shoza said:
I have a question after being suspended for something I felt wasn't something worthy of being suspended for.

We have a large completely open SQL database that everyone at work has full access too and uses on a regular basis. I often use the search functions to look up old documents or correspondence for clients, educational needs or research.

I came across some documents by chance which were viewed automatically with a "viewing pain" within Outlook. These documents I have since been told are private and confidential and I shouldn't have been looking at them, hence the suspension for breaching the firms policy.

My question is how serious a issue is this and also what affect on my suspension would the fact that we don't have any staff manual / it manual available to employee's?

Thanks for your help.

Shoza

Its normal to suspend staff pending an investigation for something like this.

I would attend the hearing, and offer to demonstrate how easy it is to come across the data inadvertently and that without any warning and no clear guidance in something like an employee handbook, this could easily happen again.

If you're IT literate, possibly even offer to help draw up something to prevent this from happenning again ? Guess it must be a small company to be so lax with IT security and have no clear employee handbook with these rules written in it.

I work for a company that supplies services to the medical profession, so we handle confidential patient data all the time etc..

We had an employee handbook which lays out all these policies including sickness etc.. and we also have an IT security Policy document which is separate to that and has to be signed and returned to HR as well as the handbook. We get 2 copies, one to keep for our own reference and one to send to HR.

Thats how it should be done.