Guest blog | Employee don’t touch my data!

Liability employee

If it turns out that your employee intentionally destroyed or leaked the data in question, that employee is liable for the damages suffered by the organisation. The question that remains, however, is whether the employee has enough monetary means to actually recover all damages. In many cases the damage has already been done anyway, because the incident will have lead to image damage. Not all damage can be compensated financially in the end.

Data leak

Furthermore, it is important to check whether there is a data leak. It is possible that the employee in question shared the data with a third party. In that case, there is a good chance that you will have to notify the Authority of Personal Data. You can legally test this. It is advisable to take good care of possible reports, because it will be part of the relevant reports to be used for liability issues.

Better safe than sorry

Both from the viewpoint of labour law as well as IT law, it is important to be aware of the vulnerability of an organisation when it comes to data(management). Especially when you are expecting an employee with access to important data to be leaving soon. In that case, it is advisable to take timely measures to reduce the chances of loss or damage of data due to actions of the employee in question. Do not limit your alertness to your own data, but properly protect your client’s data too. In practice, it happens a lot that an employee causes damages by destroying or leaking a client’s data.

Naturally you will have to take aspects of the labour law and privacy law into account. It is always advisable to get legal advice on the matter in a timely manner.

Guest blog | Employee don’t touch my data!