When employees leave, it impacts eDiscovery. This post from Avansic discusses both sides of the coin of employee separation.

As discussed in this post by Dr. Gavin W. Manes (Both Sides of the Coin: Employment Separation, available here), many employees continue to access information from their employers after separation and almost 3/4 of employers report that they’ve been negatively impacted by an employee breaching their digital security.

Many employees also keep passwords, either their own or others, which they can use to take data or monitor activity after their departure. This is a frightening prospect for employers, to be sure, who must also consider the potential for data exfiltration through accounts on third party platforms (such as Salesforce).

Data theft is rife and the vectors of stealing data are numerous, but this doesn’t mean the people that left the company are bad. In fact, as we discuss below, there are times when the removal of data was unintentional, and times when the removed data doesn’t result in easily quantifiable damages. Often there’s some analogies to a domestic relations case in the sense of betrayal, anger, and resentment on all sides.

So, what’s the best way to prepare for employee separation? What role does metadata have in employee separation events? And what are the four possible scenarios from a data removal perspective? Find out here, it’s only one click! This case is an example of what happens if you’re not prepared for employee separation! 😮

BTW, in case you missed it, Avansic and ACEDS recently conducted the webinar Both Sides of the Coin: Employee Separation from Two Perspectives. In this webinar, Gavin and Craig Ball of Ball in Your Court discussed what employee separation looks like both from the employer and from the employee side. Check the replay out here!

So, what do you think? Worried that your organization isn’t properly addressing data for separated employees? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Disclosure: Avansic is an Educational Partner and sponsor of eDiscovery Today

Disclaimer: The views represented herein are exclusively the views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views held by my employer, my partners or my clients. eDiscovery Today is made available solely for educational purposes to provide general information about general eDiscovery principles and not to provide specific legal advice applicable to any particular circumstance. eDiscovery Today should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a lawyer you have retained and who has agreed to represent you.