Can your workplace legitimate trawl through your computer and work files without letting you know ?

Cheers

Do you mean can your workplace trawl through their computer and their files without asking it’s user?

EDIT:

Sorry, slightly less dickish answer. Yes, it usually depends on your HR ‘handbook’ but, it’s their computer (assuming it’s not a private one you’ve brought to work).

Most places will tell you, via the handbook that it’s their computer and you shouldn’t use it for any private stuff, meaning, they shouldn’t find any right?

They will also usually have a line about privacy and it not being guaranteed etc.

Most places will lack the ability to actually monitor you completely (only because it costs money) but if they want to they can view your screen like CCTV and watch ever thing you do, all day, every day – but file access it easy peasy. Just need an admin account and access the machine from the network, open any file they want to.

Same goes with e-mail, some places can access your inbox and sent items, but if they want to they can read e-mails you deleted, see when you opened them, how long you looked at it, when you deleted it etc.

Don’t do anything on someone else hardware or network if you want it to remain private.

Authority to do it – probably
Technical capability – depends, but most grown up businesses, will

*in to see what Mooly’s been caught with*

P-Jay – Member
Do you mean can your workplace trawl through their computer and their files without asking it’s user?

What he says.

Yes absolutely and I’d expect them to be doing it automagically

automagically

That’s a great typo, i’m stealing that! 😆

What if there are no current files on your computer.

Can they go back to fixed points in time and drag files up?

Can they go back to fixed points in time and drag files up?

Yep. Probably

I’d imagine that they have multiple backups of all that naughty stuff that you have now deleted.

Can they go back to fixed points in time and drag files up?

They probably have a back up copy but IME it takes about a week to access that if its urgent and it is just about the hardest job you can ask an IT person to do judging by the amount of complaining if you ask them 🙂

Oh, this could be interesting.

Depends on your employer. Mine, everything is copied to a big cloud, where although it may tell me I’ve deleted it, it’ll still exist somewhere for a defined period.

A company can do any monitoring they like, but legally they have to tell you. This is in the context of email and Internet access though, whether that applies to ‘work files’ I’m unsure.

Though if they’re having you save work to your PC rather than somewhere secure and sensible like a network drive then they probably don’t have the knowledge to do that.

What if there are no current files on your computer.

Can they go back to fixed points in time and drag files up?

It depends, but see my previous comment.

what haven’t have you been looking at ?

Mooly, spit it out, what’ve you been up to? 😆

What if there are no current files on your computer.

Can they go back to fixed points in time and drag files up?

It’s certainly more than possible.

Most managed networks won’t actually store data on the PC – it might show on the desktop, or in a folder somewhere on the C: Drive, but it’s just as likely to be on a server – end users can’t be trusted with important data and desktop HDDs fail all the time, any place of a decent size will have all the data on a Server with disc redundancy and a back-up, it just looks like it’s on the PC.

There are some great back-up products that ‘snapshot’ servers, from 15 min intervals to daily – if they’re sensitive to data security they may well be able to have whoever manages their IT to say “bring me content of folder X from this time, on this date”.

That’s a sort of ‘worst case’ for you.

Perhaps more likely they’ll have nightly back-ups of the server, it’s not very easy to pull out individual files from a certain date, because most systems only save changes, so if you delete a file, once it’s backed up that data is lost.

Okay, so assume OP works in a smaller or less managed place and the data was actually on the PC if you’ve deleted more than a little while ago, it won’t be easy to recover, but nothing is impossible, if they want or need to get it back, they can pay £1000 or so for someone to try to recover it, but they’ll need to know what they’ll looking for ideally and it’s a gamble – it might not be there any more. In short when you delete some thing, all you’re doing it telling the PC it’s free to use that bit of disc for something else, it doesn’t over write it straight away.

As to your level of risk.

IF you’re in a spot of bother and your employer is actively looking for something naughty specifically, they’ll probably find it.

If you’re in a spot of bother and your employer is looking for something naughty in general there’s less chance they’ll find it.

If you’re worried about them finding something naughty on your PC but they’re otherwise not ‘having the drains up’ on you, I wouldn’t worry too much.

Truthfully, most of the systems in place these days aren’t there to catch employees out, they’re there to keep data secure in terms of it not falling into the wrong hands or otherwise being lost. The tools that really work well are expensive and need a decent level of skill to administrate, most places don’t use them unless they’re required to.

It’s the company IT policy you need to check. You probably signed something when you started. UK, companies can put whatever they want in there – some other European countries, not so easy. Holland for eg. you’re not allowed to even monitor internet access. Though we did. And quite eye-opening it was too.
You think it’s bad people spend all day on STW… you should see what some of them spend literally their whole working day surfing! 😯

The last company I worked for would put up the funniest/worst emails sent by staff at the xmas dinner for everyone’s amusemnt

My workplace an NHS hospital do. When you log on you get a warning that says roughly ” we a see everything you do, get caught doing something silly you will be found out”

As others have said good practice would be they tell you waht they are doing and most wo0rkplaces will have an IT security policy that allows them to do anything pretty much

automagically

That’s a great typo, i’m stealing that![/quote]

It’s not a typo, it’s a well known technical term. 😈

It’s certainly more than possible.

Most managed networks won’t actually store data on the PC – it might show on the desktop, or in a folder somewhere on the C: Drive, but it’s just as likely to be on a server – end users can’t be trusted with important data and desktop HDDs fail all the time, any place of a decent size will have all the data on a Server with disc redundancy and a back-up, it just looks like it’s on the PC.

There are some great back-up products that ‘snapshot’ servers, from 15 min intervals to daily – if they’re sensitive to data security they may well be able to have whoever manages their IT to say “bring me content of folder X from this time, on this date”.

That’s a sort of ‘worst case’ for you.

Perhaps more likely they’ll have nightly back-ups of the server, it’s not very easy to pull out individual files from a certain date, because most systems only save changes, so if you delete a file, once it’s backed up that data is lost.

Okay, so assume OP works in a smaller or less managed place and the data was actually on the PC if you’ve deleted more than a little while ago, it won’t be easy to recover, but nothing is impossible, if they want or need to get it back, they can pay £1000 or so for someone to try to recover it, but they’ll need to know what they’ll looking for ideally and it’s a gamble – it might not be there any more. In short when you delete some thing, all you’re doing it telling the PC it’s free to use that bit of disc for something else, it doesn’t over write it straight away.

As to your level of risk.

IF you’re in a spot of bother and your employer is actively looking for something naughty specifically, they’ll probably find it.

If you’re in a spot of bother and your employer is looking for something naughty in general there’s less chance they’ll find it.

If you’re worried about them finding something naughty on your PC but they’re otherwise not ‘having the drains up’ on you, I wouldn’t worry too much.

Truthfully, most of the systems in place these days aren’t there to catch employees out, they’re there to keep data secure in terms of it not falling into the wrong hands or otherwise being lost. The tools that really work well are expensive and need a decent level of skill to administrate, most places don’t use them unless they’re required to.

Wot this man said.

If it’s a decently managed company OR the IT system is provided by another company, they will have nightly/weekly/monthly/yearly backups, so if someone wanted a copy of a file that had been long since deleted, it’s fairly simple. Even if it requires off-site media, that just takes a day or 2 normally.

As for scanning files in an AV/security kind of way, yes they will. If a user plugs in a USB pen drive with a several folders and just one of the files in a folder is something a bit, naughty… well guess who gets an email alert within seconds? It’s there for security of the system, file servers and desktop/laptop pc’s will automatically scan any new or modified files for trojans/viruses etc.

Source: I work for a managed service provider and have seen the latter happen. Guess who got a phone call not 2 minutes after plugging said USB drive in?

If you’re worried that you’ve had something naughty (as in something with a name that would immediately get picked up by an anti-virus/dodgy file scan) on your PC, if it was a work desktop or a laptop connected to the work network then it would have probabaly already been scanned/seen/alerted. If your IT have suspicions then yes (normally with the appropriate authorisation) they can see your entire deleted emails/files etc as there will (should) be a back up of everything. Deleting incriminating items means nothing, honestly. Just makes you look more guilty.

Work computer for work stuff.

I use personal tablet and phone for my own stuff. I’ll even avoid hooking them up to company networks. Just use 4G.

More so as I’m freelance. Won’t leave personal trails on client equipment.

Yet many of the lifers in some places are saturating social networks and gaming on work time and equipment. From past experience in the permie world, stuff like that is building up evidence for suitably negative appraisals when shit is hitting the fan and they want an excuse to boot people out (though to be fair with freelance, there doesn’t need to be an excuse. Just “we don’t need you tomorrow” etc).

Other thing is keep it all work related and less likely you’ll be the one downloading something dodgy that spreads a virus through the network.

Is there any scenario at your work where one might, you know, accidentally drop ones computer into a car crusher and then set fire to it then bury the remains at sea?

Just muddy the waters by shouting about ‘personal’ data, GDPR and your right to be forgotten. It will probably take 4 years and 2 court cases to work out if it’s even relevant…

Absolutely- this happened to a friend who work tried to get rid off due to medical reasons and time off work. Got taken to court and the workplace had everything from his pc and used this as evidence. Emails and scanned docs from 6 years ago were pulled up as evidence. Scary!

Emails and scanned docs from 6 years ago were pulled up as evidence. Scary

Especially as he will have signed something that explained all of that.

I was once taken to task by a user who complained when I trashed and rebuilt his local profile to fix a fault that some files he had saved locally had disappeared. I had to admit to him that yes, I didn’t restore the porn videos he had. He was lucky I didn’t shop him.

No, they absolutely can’t

Only joking, they can and you’re screwed. And you probably give them permission every time you log in.

Is the OP currently paddling his canoe to the Phillipines?

We have a client that runs Veriato 360, not involved with it myself but it can capture a heck of a lot of info. Yes it’s allowed but I think general advice is to inform employees, even if legally it might not be a mandatory requirement.

Under the GDPR it’s probably legitimate business interest and in some cases could even fall under vital interest.

As most folk say you have probably agreed to this many times.

No sign of Mooly, they found his porn stash, bad boy!

What did he do??????????????????????????????

CLIFFHANGER!

No sign of Mooly, they found his porn stash STW browsing history, bad boy!

The OP is Damian Green MP AICMFP.

First post for 4 months with such a specific question – I reckon Mooly’s an STWer in trouble.

And that means help, no ‘you’ve only got yourself to blame’ and piss taking not to progress beyond memes, general chit-chat and pedantry.

What did he do?

Unfortunately, having had a look at his posting history, I’m not sure we’ll ever find out. Seems like he’s [possibly] in the poo though.

I reckon, Mooly is leaving company, had lifted some sensitive material and then “cleaned” the computer before handing it back to company. We had someone trying to steal the entire client contacts database as they were going to a competitor and it would have been a goldmine for them

little buggers

My bro had the opposite problem. A freelance came into his company with all the details of their rival’s tender for a job as he was off to work for them just after Christmas.
Bro freaked, told his MD who contacted the rival company said that he found the freelance had the information (that nobody had seen in any way, the freelance had simply told them it was on his laptop) and the freelance spent Christmas Day and most of Boxing Day in a cell while everyone tried to sort out what to do.
My brother’s company won’t let you take in a memory stick.Pphones, iPod and tablets are handed in at reception. If you need a phone or a tablet or a laptop work supply it.