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Documents on Company issued laptop

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carlie122

Junior Member
I live in Illinois.

I was terminated last week, during a mass termination due to the economy, and my network password was shut off during the meeting. I did not get any of my personal files (pictures of kids, my resume, my research, etc.). These files were on the laptop issued to me by the company. So I may be out of luck. I talked to HR today and they are burning a disk with my picture but what about everything else? They do this for everyone as a courtesy.

I should also note that it wasn't a big deal that people used their work PC for personal files. I was in Management and we never had a policy against personal use. I worked there for 6 years and have a lot of stuff on there that I am sure I'm not remembering everything. I am also referring to my annual appraisals, my contracts that we signed digitally, etc. Are these my property?

They said that HR looks through each file to determine if it's co property or not. They terminated 100 people that same day. there's no way an HR team of 2 went through all these files. Is there anything I can do? I'm not looking for a lawsuit or anything like that. Maybe I should try to negotiate the files with HR directly? Thanks, in advance, for any advise offered.
 


Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
carlie122 said:
I live in Illinois.

I was terminated last week, during a mass termination due to the economy, and my network password was shut off during the meeting. I did not get any of my personal files (pictures of kids, my resume, my research, etc.). These files were on the laptop issued to me by the company. So I may be out of luck. I talked to HR today and they are burning a disk with my picture but what about everything else? They do this for everyone as a courtesy.

I should also note that it wasn't a big deal that people used their work PC for personal files. I was in Management and we never had a policy against personal use. I worked there for 6 years and have a lot of stuff on there that I am sure I'm not remembering everything. I am also referring to my annual appraisals, my contracts that we signed digitally, etc. Are these my property?

They said that HR looks through each file to determine if it's co property or not. They terminated 100 people that same day. there's no way an HR team of 2 went through all these files. Is there anything I can do? I'm not looking for a lawsuit or anything like that. Maybe I should try to negotiate the files with HR directly? Thanks, in advance, for any advise offered.
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Why were you using company property for your personal items?
 
cbg

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Your annual appraisals, etc., are not your property but those of the company. Under IL law, you can request a copy of them and the employer must provide it, but they are not required to provide them to you unless you request them.

Shutting off computer access is not only legal but good business practice, and I can attest to the value of doing so. On one occasion, a fired employee who was allowed to go back and get her personal possessions deliberately did a great deal of damage to a computer including deleting several key files. On another occasion we had shut off the employee's access but we were able to tell not only that he was attempting to get in remotely, but our IT people were able to determine by what he did manage (don't ask me how, I'm not an IT person) that his intent was to commit sabotage. You might be only looking to retrieve your personal pictures and files, but how can they be sure? How can they tell who is and is not intent on doing a little damage in retaliation?

If other employees want to get their personal files all they have to do is ask.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
carlie122 said:
As I noted in my original post, there wasn't a policy against it. I assumed that I would have access if something like a termination was to take place.
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Why would you assume that you would get access to company equipment after you were no longer employed by said company?
 
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carlie122

Junior Member
cbg said:
Your annual appraisals, etc., are not your property but those of the company. Under IL law, you can request a copy of them and the employer must provide it, but they are not required to provide them to you unless you request them.

Shutting off computer access is not only legal but good business practice, and I can attest to the value of doing so. On one occasion, a fired employee who was allowed to go back and get her personal possessions deliberately did a great deal of damage to a computer including deleting several key files. On another occasion we had shut off the employee's access but we were able to tell not only that he was attempting to get in remotely, but our IT people were able to determine by what he did manage (don't ask me how, I'm not an IT person) that his intent was to commit sabotage. You might be only looking to retrieve your personal pictures and files, but how can they be sure? How can they tell who is and is not intent on doing a little damage in retaliation?

If other employees want to get their personal files all they have to do is ask.
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I completely agree to this. I do work in IT and I, as much as anyone, understand the damage that folks can do. I am not looking for my access to be turned back on. It looks like my best bet for today when I go to pick up some additional things from my office, I will talk to HR and see if we can browse the files together. thank you for the tip on asking for my personnel information. I'll be sure to bring that up when I'm there.
 
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carlie122

Junior Member
Zigner said:
Why would you assume that you would get access to company equipment after you were no longer employed by said company?
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Hold on a second...I never requested access to the equipment. I simply want all contents of "my documents" to be burnt to the disk.
 
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cyjeff

Senior Member
carlie122 said:
Hold on a second...I never requested access to the equipment. I simply want all contents of "my documents" to be burnt to the disk.
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Simply put, the moment that you put anything on your company equipment it became the exclusive property of that company.

They are making a good will gesture back to you for obvious personal items. However, I know of NO company that will simply give you the full contents of the "my documents" folder.

The company can and will argue that there is an excellent chance that there is confidential information contained within and they do NOT, by law, have to read through every document on the drive to see which are and which are not involved.
 
cbg

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Don't misunderstand me. You are entitled to a copy of the contents of YOUR PERSONNEL FILE. You are NOT entitled to a copy of everything in the "my documents" file.
 
C

carlie122

Junior Member
cyjeff said:
Simply put, the moment that you put anything on your company equipment it became the exclusive property of that company.

They are making a good will gesture back to you for obvious personal items. However, I know of NO company that will simply give you the full contents of the "my documents" folder.

The company can and will argue that there is an excellent chance that there is confidential information contained within and they do NOT, by law, have to read through every document on the drive to see which are and which are not involved.
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This is helpful, thank you. The bottom line is I was looking to see what obligations they had under law. Looks like they are covered and I will never again put files on a work pc (without having proper back up) again. :eek:
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
The SMART thing to have done (for the company) would have been to have reformatted the drive entirely.

The SMART thing to have done (for our OP in the IT Dept) would have been to keep backups of the personal information.

Neither thing has been done. OP needs to pour on the sugar - there is no legal requirement that the information be turned over, but for a good (former) employee, there is probably no reason they wouldn't allow recovery of the information.
 
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cyjeff

Senior Member
Zigner said:
The SMART thing to have done (for the company) would have been to have reformatted the drive entirely.

The SMART thing to have done (for our OP in the IT Dept) would have been to keep backups of the personal information.

Neither thing has been done. OP needs to pour on the sugar - there is no legal requirement that the information be turned over, but for a good (former) employee, there is probably no reason they wouldn't allow recovery of the information.
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Just as a footnote.

While it is advisable to keep backups of personal information, once on company equipment, that information becomes the property of the company. They can do with it as they will. In fact, there have been several cases were things such as child pornography were found on returned equipment and those files were then turned over to the authorities... legally.

Further, the company also has ownership of any documents transferred FROM the company's equipment to home backup. I strongly recommend against routinely backing up company files onto your home backup storage system. These files belong only to the company.
 
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carlie122

Junior Member
cyjeff said:
Just as a footnote.

While it is advisable to keep backups of personal information, once on company equipment, that information becomes the property of the company. They can do with it as they will. In fact, there have been several cases were things such as child pornography were found on returned equipment and those files were then turned over to the authorities... legally.

Further, the company also has ownership of any documents transferred FROM the company's equipment to home backup. I strongly recommend against routinely backing up company files onto your home backup storage system. These files belong only to the company.
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Understood. Thank you both. I was definitely a good employee there and they worked with me today when I got there. I wasn't trying to get company files. I understand that work and those docs belong to them. Like I said, I am in Management and understand the difference fully ;). I am taken care of now and they will mail my personnel (appraisals, etc.) to me since they didn't have that done. I don't have everything but it was certainly a decent compromise and I am ready to move on to new opportunities.
 
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Tallrat

Member
Since it is a work computer everything on it belongs to them. It will totally be up to them to give you anything. No policy on company computer use? Now that is bad! Good luck getting personal stuff back though. I would freak if they told me, Hey grab personal files off those 100 pc's and burn them to dvd's :eek::eek:
 
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