Employer uses employee's personal emails against them in lawsuit

[KurtNYC]

The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has turned employee e-mails into a potent legal weapon in an acrimonious court battle with a team of top executives who left the bank last year to form a competing investment firm.
...
The revealing e-mails are a stark reminder to employees in the digital age that messages they zap into the Internet ether can come back to haunt them.
...
"A lot of people on the Street are going to have a few sleepless nights, going through loads of e-mail to delete them when they hear about this case," said Don Johnston, a technology and privacy specialist at Toronto law firm Aird & Berlis. "But what is so terrifying to people is that they can't really delete their e-mails. They could be stored in any number of places."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050106/RCIBCEMAIL06/TPBusiness/?query=CIBC

This started with executives conspiring to leave their company and set up a competing one. CIBC is seeking damages which includes having the conspirators pay back all of their salaries which CIBC paid them while they were using the CIBC's offices and equipment to form their competing firm.

The bombshell in this is that even Blackberry messages were tapped. And the case is a glaring reminder that you can't really delete your old emails since they are backed up in a number of places. There are now follow-up stories dealing with reactions from employees who thought their emails were deleted.

[Sanity Claws]

1. This is not uncommon

I do employment litigation here in the US and that kind of evidence comes in all the time.
Actually, the guys were pretty dumb to use business email system to send personal emails. Regardless of its content, that could be considered a misuse of company property.

[Patiod]

2. How stupid could these people be?

I'm tech-illiterate and even I know not to send anything via email that you wouldn't want everyone at the company reading. I just assume that work reads every single email I write - it's just safer that way.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

5. How stupid? PHB stupid, that's how.

Which is just a notch below GWB stupid.

[KurtNYC]

6. It's the Blackberry PIN stuff that shocked people

At one brokerage house, traders and bankers spent much of their early meeting discussing whether employers, or even regulators, could tap into so-called PIN messages — those sent between BlackBerry users via a device's personal identification number instead of a normal e-mail address. (Each BlackBerry has a numerical PIN associated with the device.)

Until this week, this was considered to be a secure means of communication, safe from the prying eyes of bosses and outsiders. But that illusion was shattered by a nasty legal brawl that has erupted between Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Genuity Capital Markets, a new investment-banking firm started by a group of ex-CIBC executives.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050107.wxblackberry0107/BNStory/Business/

[Patiod]

8. I told you I was tech illiterate

Plus I can never understand the emails I get from people's Blackberry:

Me: "So, do you want to do option #1 or option #2"
Them: "Go ahead" (sent by Blackberry from BEdmonds)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. That's why I use this:

http://enigmail.mozdev.org

[Swamp Rat]

11. Brigado

... for the link.

[sui generis]

4. well just don't post on any websites where Fox might quote

you!

Some companies hire teams of people to human-review keywords or suspicious phrases in emails flagged by the system.

Others treat their employees like adults.

The CIBC folks got what they deserve though. In the finance industry ethics is paramount to trust. If as an executive you violate an ethical standard, especially using your current company's resources to lay the groundwork for a competing company you are slime.

[fryguy]

7. shouldn't suprise anyone

its fairly well established law that an employee does not enjoy and expectation of privacy when using an employer's equipment for communications. this wasn't such a problem before computers since, essentially the only communication equipment was the phone - which obviously doesn't, unaided, retain a memory of calls.

however, in the digital age communications, even instant messenges, are well preserved. even if you think you've erased them entirely from your computer they can be retrieved either locally or from servers.

here's a tip - if you don't want people using statements against you later, don't put it in writing

[MsUSA]

9. D*mn, so you're saying I should be doing work at work???

and not reading and posting on DU??? LOL

[fryguy]

12. i'll stop posting and start working if you do

:toast:

[mcscajun]

10. Assume that every keystroke you make on your boss' PC is logged

somewhere...because there's a darned good chance that it is.

The larger the outfit you work for, the more likely it is that everything you do on their computers, whether it's their own e-mail system, your webmail account, and especially the Internet sites you visit, is monitored, logged and recorded.

You have no, absolutely no expectation of privacy in anything you do while at work (short of what goes on in the rest room, and I've read of horror stories there, too).

Be discreet. Be careful. Be safe.

[SoCalDem]

13. No one should EVER have personal e-mail on a business computer

Would you leave love letters on your desk for all to read??