Confiscated Property

toffo

Just revieved a mail from HR stating that "If you are found in possession of a mass storage device it will be confiscated and not returned."

Now I know it is against company policy to bring external hard drives, flash drives ect. to work, as it cis a breach of securtiy, but are they actually allowed to keep anything they confiscate, or is it Illegal?

WHIP IT!

toffo wrote: »

Just revieved a mail from HR stating that "If you are found in possession of a mass storage device it will be confiscated and not returned."

Now I know it is against company policy to bring external hard drives, flash drives ect. to work, as it cis a breach of securtiy, but are they actually allowed to keep anything they confiscate, or is it Illegal?

I would love to see someone from HR come and try and "confiscate" something from me... they'd better bring a big-ass gun with em!

SoupyNorman

toffo wrote: »

Just revieved a mail from HR stating that "If you are found in possession of a mass storage device it will be confiscated and not returned."

Now I know it is against company policy to bring external hard drives, flash drives ect. to work, as it cis a breach of securtiy, but are they actually allowed to keep anything they confiscate, or is it Illegal?

I would only imagine so if stated in your employee handbook and or in your original contract.

qwertz

Keep in mind that a lot of MP3 players double as mass storage devices.

Tom Dunne

qwertz wrote: »

Keep in mind that a lot of MP3 players double as mass storage devices.

If you want to take it one step further, so do most mobile phones.

jhegarty

WHIP IT! wrote: »

I would love to see someone from HR come and try and "confiscate" something from me... they'd better bring a big-ass gun with em!

They don't need a gun, just a big-ass p45.....

Standard Toaster

^^ Aye, Blackberries in my place.
As long as the user is not local admin & you have the right ad policy in place (assuming windows here) you can disable their workstation from installing the mass storage device.

This would prevent virus etc from infecting the pc/network via teh workstation too.

OP
I would be surprised if the if they kept the device on you. You'd get a verbal warning I guess if it's in the handbook.

MIN2511

I think you would get a verbal warning, confiscating the device is a step too far IMO

Stephen

The big concern with mass storage devices is data leakage - i.e. say some sales guy is leaving the company and he takes a copy of all the customer records with him.

Thing is though, there are loads of products on the market that the IT dept can use to prevent use of external mass storage devices and that's how this should be enforced, not by threatening employees.

Standard Toaster

Yeap, get yourself a 160Gb iPod and you could fire a hell of a lot of info on that.

We use an app (name escapes me) that will alert us when a user connects various removal devices.

eth0_

If the company suspect you are stealing confidential information then yes, they are well within their rights to take the device off you.

However - are they f*cking thick? Why don't they just block mass storage devices from all the computers on their network? It's really simple to do this. People with iPod do not need to and should not be connecting them to their work PC's.

damnyanks

Someone in our place nicked a load of really important data and went to a competitor. They ratted on him last I heard he was in jail.

You get people who try to knick stuff and get away with it.

leeroybrown

While I agree that such an employer should be blocking removable media devices where practical, no security policy is ever 100% perfect so from there point of view going for an 'air gap' solution and banning them from site may provide more of a guarantee. Data loss and network intrusion due to removable media devices rates very high on the corporate worry list.

As for confiscation, I imagine this is half a case of the employer using a heavy handed threat and half a case of it being relatively difficult to guarantee that a removable media device has been completely securely erased.

Look on the bright side. If you worked in a proper 'secure' environment you'd probably be leaving all personal electronic devices in your car, storing your computers hard drive in a safe overnight and running back and forth between two different physical areas to do work and use the company intranet.

I can see rules like this becoming part of corporate 'best practice' and appearing in a lot of workplaces soon.

SerialComplaint

damnyanks wrote: »

Someone in our place nicked a load of really important data and went to a competitor. They ratted on him last I heard he was in jail.

You get people who try to knick stuff and get away with it.

I find it hard to believe that anyone has been jailed for data theft. Was this in Ireland?

Few organisations would want the publicity that comes with a high-profile prosecution. A swift, quiet firing is far more likely, followed up by some legal threats against the competitor.

MarinoMark

The joys of bluetooth ! Usb bluetooth 19 euro in maplins, Engage bluetooth on your phone, and copy whatever you like on to your phone, Thats if they have any info u want !!

KTRIC

Your employer has absolutely no grounds for taking anything from you. If they do then its theft and you should report it to the Gardai.

Some people in HR have no idea about how the law works and tend to make it up as they go along.