Air Canada Sues Over Misuse Of Employee Password

Anonymous Coward writes "What do you do when you let an employee go? You kill their password and ID, right? Air Canada didn't, and they're now in court because the employee went to a competitor, wrote some cool automated scripts using the ID/password, and grabbed some company data." Interesting story, because Air Canada authorized the employee to access this website and book tickets for himself as part of his severance, but they apparently provide a little more data on that site than what is available to the public.

Comments

Re:I'm not sure if I understand

[eetiiyupy]

In England and Wales, confidentiality is a branch of the law which is currently growing with the help of the European Human Rights treaty. But it is pretty well established that a former employee owes his former employer a duty of confidentiality. If he knows that the information is important, valuable and obtained in the course of employment, he should keep it quiet. The leading case on this involves a man called Fowler who worked for a company that sells chickens ( Facenda Chicken v Fowler [1985] 1 All ER 724).

Summary: No agreement needed, it's the employee's state of mind.