Hello, Leo. Under abuse of power, my boss threatened me with termination and
disabled my email account. My fear is that he will get the IT team to plant
fictitious emails; basically, send postdated emails from my address to
competitors to make a case of data theft against me.
Now, I need to understand what all I must do to safeguard myself. Can “they”
– IT – send emails from my address to others? And then can it be proved in
court, if I drag them to court? Because such a malicious and vengeful act may
harm my career forever.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #15, I look at the access that the IT department will have to
your email account and what they can do.
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Get an attorney
I honestly can’t address what you need to do. This definitely sounds like a
case where you need legal advice and I’m not a lawyer. I cannot give out legal
advice.
I would strongly encourage you to contact an attorney who is versed in these
kinds of actions to get qualified advice.
What the IT department can do
What I can say is that: yes, your IT department can do any number of
things, particularly if they have malicious intent.
-
It is absolutely possible for them to send email that looks like it came
from you. -
It is also possible to forge or fake the dates on emails so that it looks
like (at least at the top layer), the email was sent at a time or a date other
than when it actually was sent.
Under the hood, using various forensic techniques, the forgery can often
(not always, but often) be disproved.
But, like I said, that’s when it starts to get tricky. That’s when it starts
to touch into the realm of what you can and cannot gain access to legally.
Which is why I have to continue to refer you back to an attorney to take it
further.
