Kicked off company email address because manager of the same name has joined the comp

10000maniacs · 12-10-2019 01:50PM #1

A collegue of mine in an American multinational company has been kicked off his email address he has used for years because a new senior manager has joined the company with the same name. My collegue has been working there for over 10 years and has numerous accounts associated with the email address. Any legal suggestions with this case?

Fann Linn · 12-10-2019 01:53PM

Would it not be the company's property?

10000maniacs · 12-10-2019 01:53PM

I suppose it would.

BDI · 12-10-2019 01:53PM

Choose your battles would be my advice.

banie01 · 12-10-2019 01:58PM

Don't use work email or indeed any email that you don't have full control over as a recovery email or option for any online service.
The email address is company property, its allocation, revocation and content are all at the whim of your friends employer IMO.

Granted, reallocating it is bad form. Its theirs to do what they want though.
That said, its fairly poor practice on your friends part to have any online services and accounts that are not explicitly work related associated to a work email address.

punisher5112 · 12-10-2019 02:00PM

I do hope he wasn't using it for personal as others may well reply to him thinking it is actually him but it ain't...

Sam Quentin · 12-10-2019 02:07PM

banie01 wrote: »

Don't use work email or indeed any email that you don't have full control over as a recovery email or option for any online service.
The email address is company property, its allocation, revocation and content are all at the whim of your friends employer IMO.

Granted, reallocating it is bad form. Its theirs to do what they want though.
That said, its fairly poor practice on your friends part to have any online services and accounts that are not explicitly work related associated to a work email address.

Ahhhhh c'mon,.it becomes part of you deliberately or not,.I think fierce bad form of the company to do such a non empathetic nasty thing. Wether the email is the company's property or not.
Nasty Nasty.

Earleybird · 12-10-2019 02:10PM

Strange move by the company. Email address in use for over 10 years, there will be plenty of mails that will come through to the wrong person for a while

10000maniacs · 12-10-2019 02:12PM

banie01 wrote: »

Don't use work email or indeed any email that you don't have full control over as a recovery email or option for any online service.
The email address is company property, its allocation, revocation and content are all at the whim of your friends employer IMO.

Granted, reallocating it is bad form. Its theirs to do what they want though.
That said, its fairly poor practice on your friends part to have any online services and accounts that are not explicitly work related associated to a work email address.

He is a SW developer And has numerous company Microsoft accounts and software subscriptions based on the email. And probably some external accounts like everyone has.

10000maniacs · 12-10-2019 02:15PM

Earleybird wrote: »

Strange move by the company. Email address in use for over 10 years, there will be plenty of mails that will come through to the wrong person for a while

Two US companies merged recently (banking) and this is one of the fallouts.

Steve · 12-10-2019 02:30PM

So, he notifies the good clients of the change and the new guy has to deal with all the shyte? win win.

banie01 · 12-10-2019 03:37PM

10000maniacs wrote: »

He is a SW developer And has numerous company Microsoft accounts and software subscriptions based on the email. And probably some external accounts like everyone has.

Hopefully his company's IT management and merger team can sort something out for notifying other people and migrating his accounts.

Claw Hammer · 12-10-2019 04:37PM

10000maniacs wrote: »

A collegue of mine in an American multinational company has been kicked off his email address he has used for years because a new senior manager has joined the company with the same name. My collegue has been working there for over 10 years and has numerous accounts associated with the email address. Any legal suggestions with this case?

There could potentially be a breach of the data protection act. he could complain to the data protection commission.

BDI · 12-10-2019 04:43PM

Claw Hammer wrote: »

There could potentially be a breach of the data protection act. he could complain to the data protection commission.

It’s the companies data. I’d say it’s fairly similar to a work phone number. They took a lads phone off him in my job before with absolutely no notice. Just turned up asked him for it and gave it to somebody else.

Carawaystick · 12-10-2019 07:09PM

BDI wrote: »

It’s the companies data. I’d say it’s fairly similar to a work phone number. They took a lads phone off him in my job before with absolutely no notice. Just turned up asked him for it and gave it to somebody else.

Its the workers data.

gdpr wrote:

Personal data are any information which are related to an identified or identifiable natural person

un5byh7sqpd2x0 · 12-10-2019 07:11PM

BDI wrote: »

It’s the companies data. I’d say it’s fairly similar to a work phone number. They took a lads phone off him in my job before with absolutely no notice. Just turned up asked him for it and gave it to somebody else.

It's not though, there's an expectation to privacy even at work

Weltsmertz · 12-10-2019 08:20PM

Bad form. There is an expectation of privacy even if technically it belongs to the company. I have conducted several relationships via my work e-mail.

El Tarangu · 12-10-2019 09:36PM

Weltsmertz wrote: »

I have conducted several relationships via my work e-mail.

Social/romantic relationships?

Hammer of the Clods · 12-10-2019 09:49PM

Enrique Rapping Pelvis wrote: »

It's not though, there's an expectation to privacy even at work

Is there though?

There is probably a policy in place explaining how the email should be used. I've had to sign several over the years and they usually specify that emails are for work product only.

Work emails are generally administered by other employees, stored and controlled on company servers/resources. In my mind using work email would be the same as writing to someone on a companies stationary (headed paper), sending it through the company's postal system so they pay for the postage (or franking), and then filing a copy of the letter and any replies in a company filing cabinet.

It's crappy that the company have given the address to someone else, but it's theirs to do with as they please.

L1011 · 12-10-2019 10:02PM

I don't know what IT department would ever consent to this as it is effectively guaranteed to result in data disclosure that shouldn't happen

There's nothing about being able to stop your employer changing your email address - but immediately reissuing it to someone else is insanity.

Vetch · 13-10-2019 06:46AM

Hammer of the Clods wrote: »

Is there though?

There is probably a policy in place explaining how the email should be used. I've had to sign several over the years and they usually specify that emails are for work product only.

Work emails are generally administered by other employees, stored and controlled on company servers/resources. In my mind using work email would be the same as writing to someone on a companies stationary (headed paper), sending it through the company's postal system so they pay for the postage (or franking), and then filing a copy of the letter and any replies in a company filing cabinet.

It's crappy that the company have given the address to someone else, but it's theirs to do with as they please.

The email address itself is the employee's personal data though as it contains the person's name. Odd decision by the company and one that might have been sorted out differently by adding a middle initial or putting the name in a different format.

whomitconcerns · 13-10-2019 06:53AM

I've never heard of this happen in any company multinational or otherwise, and speaking to some it colleagues, they never have done this either..

Sounds very weird and possibly a mistake on the it departments side. Your friend should speak with their it department straight away

Lumen · 13-10-2019 07:15AM

whomitconcerns wrote: »

I've never heard of this happen in any company multinational or otherwise, and speaking to some it colleagues, they never have done this either..

I have! It used to be very common, maybe still is but I haven't had a proper job in years.

My recommendation would be to leave the company. Take it as a sign of overinflated management egos and GTFO.

Failing that, identify the key accounts to be switched over and deal with them on a case by case basis. Github allows a new address to be registered without cocking up the contributions history.

If those accounts include porn etc then I revert to my first suggestion.

lawred2 · 13-10-2019 07:22AM

10000maniacs wrote: »

A collegue of mine in an American multinational company has been kicked off his email address he has used for years because a new senior manager has joined the company with the same name. My collegue has been working there for over 10 years and has numerous accounts associated with the email address. Any legal suggestions with this case?

That's stupid. They should have used a middle initial to differentiate between the two.

Sure he'll be in countless contacts list with that email address. How are they to know that it is no longer reaching there intended recipient?

Franz Von Peppercorn II · 13-10-2019 07:33AM

Vetch wrote: »

The email address itself is the employee's personal data though as it contains the person's name. Odd decision by the company and one that might have been sorted out differently by adding a middle initial or putting the name in a different format.

There’s nothing personal about a work email account. It’s for work purposes only. However GDPR rules seem to mean that any monitoring should be explained beforehand and business related.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/basic-rights-and-contracts/monitoring-at-work/

Franz Von Peppercorn II · 13-10-2019 07:37AM

Carawaystick wrote: »

Its the workers data

Personal data are any information which are related to an identified or identifiable natural person

.

Is fairly common for people to quote this as if it subsequently means that GDPR makes any such data unusable by the company. It’s merely defining what personal data is, it doesn’t say it can’t be used for business purposes.

Vetch · 13-10-2019 07:46AM

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

There’s nothing personal about a work email account. It’s for work purposes only. However GDPR rules seem to mean that any monitoring should be explained beforehand and business related.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/basic-rights-and-contracts/monitoring-at-work/

I didn't say that the work email account was personal; what I wrote was that the email address is personal data. It contains the employee's name and has become associated with that person.

That said, I don't use my work email account for my personal dealings but it still contains my personal data as it contains emails relating to my leave, payroll, performance management documents etc etc. Suspect this is the case with many people.

I don't see how monitoring has anything to do with this.

Vetch · 13-10-2019 07:47AM

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Is fairly common for people to quote this as if it subsequently means that GDPR makes any such data unusable by the company. It’s merely defining what personal data is, it doesn’t say it can’t be used for business purposes.

Correct - but the company still has to ensure that its use of personal data is legitimate in terms of Data Protection law.

Eire Go Brach · 13-10-2019 09:11AM

Don’t think it’s a GDPR issue. Stupid decision though. Does not make any sense.
The new person won’t see any older emails of the original owner. They are 2 separate accounts
It will confuse the hell out of colleagues and anyone emailing externally.

13-10-2019 10:56AM

Eire Go Brach wrote: »

Don’t think it’s a GDPR issue. Stupid decision though. Does not make any sense.
The new person won’t see any older emails of the original owner. They are 2 separate accounts
It will confuse the hell out of colleagues and anyone emailing externally.

If lots of people are replying to emails originally sent by person A and those replies are now received by person B, there could be data protection or GDPR issues involved.

It's a really dumb decision by the company - very poor email management practice. It smacks of a decision made by someone who hasn't got a clue about technology, and an IT dept that doesn't have the respect of management to be able to push back.

Lumen · 13-10-2019 12:44PM

There is a legitimate issue with people making assumptions that john.doe@megacorp.com is one particular John Doe.

So one way around this is to change the alias on the original account and set up an autoresponder, that replies with something like:

----
There are now two John Does in MegaCorp.

Please update your address book as follows:

john.b.doe@megacorp.com Global Vice Chimp
john.r.doe@megacorp.com Software Engineering Ninja Class 3

Insincere regards etc..
---

That way it's impossible for the wrong person to be targetted. It also scales as more John Does join the company, just update the autoresponder.

Plus, the Global Vice Chimp gets to appear first on the list.

Kicked off company email address because manager of the same name has joined the comp

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