Employee termination/leaving 2549



  • Hello everyone,
    I have a question (please forgive me if this query has been addressed before) regarding the SOX compliance with an employee being terminated or voluntarily leaving the company.
    What does the act stipulate in terms of email forwarding to another employee under the circumstances of the employee being terminated from the compnay or voluntarily leaving? Is it normal for IT to give complete mailbox access to another user? Yes, the business requirements are there, but what about the legal issues involved? Are there any guidelines dictating these conditions?
    Thanks in advance.
    Ravi



  • Hello everyone,
    I have a question (please forgive me if this query has been addressed before) regarding the SOX compliance with an employee being terminated or voluntarily leaving the company.
    What does the act stipulate in terms of email forwarding to another employee under the circumstances of the employee being terminated from the compnay or voluntarily leaving? Is it normal for IT to give complete mailbox access to another user? Yes, the business requirements are there, but what about the legal issues involved? Are there any guidelines dictating these conditions?
    Thanks in advance.
    Ravi
    Absoultely nothing.



  • Hi Ravi - I agree with Denis from a SOX perspective.
    As I had a decade of IT security experience, I’ll share some from a non-SOX standpoint below.
    Outside of SOX, I would be careful as there are privacy concerns and differing regulations based on location. For example, Germany and even some locations in the USA (California) have more restrictive privacy requirements.
    Still, many companies allow this practice. The prior history and work-in-process are absolutely needed by the new person. Most companies promote ‘business use only’ and ‘no expectations of privacy in the workplace’.
    Some non-SOX related suggestions:

    1. Keep this practice to an absolute minimum
    2. It’s beneficial for someone (e.g., former employee’s manager) to review and delete non-business or private messages found
    3. Even though the former employee has no rights of privacy (and may have signed forms), you would not want to end up in court.
    4. Caution the new employee not to mis-use any personal information or history found
    5. Another idea is to only forward revelant transition documents across to the new employee’s mailbox (but that may require too much work)


  • Hello everyone,
    Thank you very much for taking the time to reply to the post. It is greatly appreciated.
    Regards
    Ravi


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