IT Support

[Garz]

Terrible grammar btw.

Now you can see why we have told them to F Off and we are refusing to pay!

Pay what exactly?

 

[The Riddler]

The Bill for fixing the computers.
They have stolen data so till that resolved we are holding all other payments, we also want the staff who took the data sacked, compensation and the staff who stole the data procecuted. I just been talking to my Boss and we are thinking of calling the police in tomorow.

 

[yello]

A third party (presumably, because they are being paid) company, <snip> Are you sure about that?

As sure as you appear to be. IF they have been instructed to do that (and that is not clear from the OP) then they're merely doing as asked.... and paid to do. As I said in my 1st post, it's not entirely clear (to me at least) what the relationship with the IT support company is. Many companies have outsourced IT support but they'll only do what you ask them to do.

On my screen it says "coppied" not "coppled",

Ah, I was reading it on my netbook!!

I dunno, there MUST be more to this story. WHY would any 3rd party outsourced IT Company just take laptops and copy/remove peoples' personal data? Unless they were asked to do that, then it simply doesn't make sense. I can accept that they might have a rogue employee(s) that have copied off personal data, but why then delete it and make it obvious! And how does the OP know personal data has been copied?? As I say, the situation here is unclear.

 

[Wigsie]

I think some peeps have got the wrong idea here. My reading of the OP is that the support company stole personal data from the laptops, not that they were doing any cleaning.

IMO, if that is the case, I would do what I could to sack them immediately.

This is the way i understood it.. Pervy IT geeks stealing piccies of the ladies holiday snaps!

 

[Ivan Ardon]

If you have a written contract and they've done something outside of what they should, then you may have grounds for complaint. Jumping up and down won't achieve anything, shouting for individual staff sackings makes you sound like a Daily Mail reader, you're going to need to act professionally if you have to go to court or you'll be laughed out.

So:
Have they copied or deleted the data?
What data is it?
Business related or staff's personal files?

If they've broken the terms of their contract, you need to take legal advice but the police won't be interested.

if they've stolen business data, or broken the terms of the Data Protection Act then that's a different kettle of fish, and a whole world of trouble could be heading their way.

You DO need to make sure that someone in your company hasn't told the IT supplier to get rid of all the "personal junk" on the PCs and is keeping their head down now it's all blown up in their face.

Regarding the girl in the office who's fuming that all her stuff has been deleted - what did she intend to do if the hard disk in her PC crashed?

 

[ACS]

Looking at this from an IT managers perspective, this discussion can go one forever because we do not sight of the following:

Company IT policy if there is one (we have been told that personal data may be stored on company laptops, but is it in writing?)
Contract between the company and the IT support organisation
Instructions, verbal or written between the company and IT support organisation.
Service level agreement between the company and the IT support organsiation.

My inital thought is if data personal or otherwise is on a laptop that is the property of the company provided for business purposes by the company then any data on any company device is the property of the company and they can do with is as they wish.

While you say it has been 'stolen' what proof is there of that fact, or are you relying on the fact that it is simply not there anymore and it must be the IT company because they are evil perverts?

Was anything else discovered on the laptop to evidence that it was used to visit sites considered by the company as questionable?

What evidence do you have that the data has been stolen for
nefarious means, seen on the Internet, published for personal gain, blackmail, round robin email or have they just been serviced and had all the non company data taken off?

So many questions, how about some facts instead of stirring up a storm in a tea cup?

 

[The Riddler]

They DID NOT DELETE DATA, THEY COPPIED PERSON DATA OFF THE STAFF PCS, Which Per thre contract they where not supposed to do, we found some images posted on the net that should not off been posted the girl in question is angry as hell, they have been advised that the images in question where not posted by the girl in question or any one who she is asisiated with.

Here husband all ready said he oing to deck the guy if he finds out who it is, so we told them that we are not paying there bill unless they find out who it was and sack them.

We also advised if they take legal action agains us we will reciprecase for breach of the data protection act. My wife is also consird as we had holiday snaps and other stuff ont the laptop they had.

If it found they have taken more data then it will go from there.

At no point where they supposed with out express authorisation to copy hold or in any way take coppies or hold any of our data.

This was written explicitly in to the contract and all data duplication or backing up had to be authorised by the Boss and if it was person data by the people involved in this case neither happend.

So this is the last time we will outsource we get our own IT person.

 

[Brains]

You need to read their contract very carefully

I used to be involved in writing IT support contracts

It is possible/probable they they have said they will supply/maintain the company laptops to their own spec and build.

Therefore anything that is on the laptop and is not supposed to be (ie personal files) will be removed.

Rather than wipe the files they have copied the files.

I'm guessing before you get the police involved, ask a lawyer who specalises in IT issues to spend one (free) hour reading the contract and he will then tell you your next move.

By the way. If the IT company have copied the data, then they can re-supply your data back to you (however who pays for the service is anyones guess)

 

[Coco]

I think we're getting somewhere here. Looks like someone had private pictures on their work's computer and these have suddenly appeared on the internet. The original owner claims not to have put them there so it must have been the IT company. Is this based on any evidence? Does anyone else have/could have had access to the computer either directly or via a network?

I also question why on earth people would put private photos/documents on a computer that didn't belong to them. Lunacy if you ask me.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Were these IT contractors were backing up the data on your PCs so that it could be restored in the case of theft/damage/corruption/fire etc? In that case it was probably just easier to copy the entire drive then to poke around your PCs working out which data was work-related and which was personal. Unless your company has a policy saying all personal data (including images) is kept within a certain, easily identified folder, you cannot expect the IT contractors to be able to tell where your personal files are kept. The only way they could do it would be to poke around your PC and examine your files, which I suppose you wouldn't want them to do.

However, if you know for a fact they copied and distributed personal data from your PCs for their own amusement, then that sounds pretty illegal. I'd have thought it would have contravened the data protection act.

 

[jeltz]

Hello The Riddler

This all seems rather strange, surely if there are pictures posted online without permission of the subject then any IT company would be taking it seriously and investigating. If an employee has done what you say then any company would be looking at sacking them for gross misconduct. Such untrustworthy behaviour could easily be turned against them too.

Anyway, may I ask do you cycle?

I've had a look at your other posts and none of them relate to cycling, on a cycling forum. Just curious

 

[ACS]

You need to strip the emotion out of your argument, deal in facts and reality, not supposition and possibilities.

You ask for advice and guidance but you drip feed answers to questions, for instance you have just revealed that the images have been posted on the Internet? Post 22

Question, where those images posted after the laptops when in to the IT company and if so where and by who?

Has this 'incident' been notified to senior management and if so what is their response?

 

[Sittingduck]

Riddler

Are you empowered to make the decisions you are mentioning, such as refusing to pay and taking them to court? If you own the relationship between your firm and the IT company then I would assume you would know the terms of the support contract and also your own firm's information security policy.

Not sure what kind of two-bob-bit IT company you use but what they have allegedly done sounds way beyond illegal! Take some legal advise asap. AFAIK the data is owned entirely by you and any replication and removal of this would surely constitute theft - not to mention leaving their reputaton in tatters.

Regards,
SD

p.s. how did they allegedly copy the data? On to removable storage devices or what?

 

[PaulB]

Not sure about the legal advice, but i'd get them to install a spell-checker.