Ex employee accessing emails

[paoloh]

An employee quit, so we changed the password, not knowing that their Smartphone would still keep them logged in.

They forwarded to some emails to their private email address after leaving the company.

Is this illegal?

[andy-xr]

If you have IP clauses in the contract, yes potentially. More likely that they just wanted some old contacts email addresses

If you have access to the info that went walkies it might be worth having a chat with the ex employee about it before waving paper around

[bitchstewie]

If they weren't employed by you at the time then arguably there's something in the Computer Misuse Act.

In reality the cost of doing anything about it probably outweighs the benefits - I'd treat it as a learning opportunity.

[Bodo]

So you've granted server access to him as an employee on his own device; and now you have no control over the hardware, while you've realised that your server doesn't always require an authentication when data is downloaded.

Bad luck, I say. You could delete his account entirely, so that he cannot log in - no matter what. Else, you should consider that employees may only access your network with hardware provided by the company. That way, they need to hand it back, once they become ex-employees, and you maintain control.

[BGARK]

Suggest when all calms down, move to business gmail, so much easier to manage everything and not just emails.