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Company Laptop, My Data — Can They Co-exist?
An anonymous reader writes "I recently replaced my old laptop. The owner of my company heard about this and offered to reimburse me for it, since he knows I have and will continue to do company work on my own hardware. I'd like the extra $1,250, but I think if I accept his offer that legally he has the right to any data on it (personal emails, files, blog posts, etc.). Even if I decide to put my personal stuff on a second drive, I'm worried that using company property to save and write to separate storage still gives them the right to it. The apps (Office, etc.) are my own licenses. We do not have a policy that intellectual property developed using company assets belongs to the company. But, if I figured out the One Great Internet Business Idea or write the Great American Novel and used the company laptop to do it, it's an avenue they could use to claim they own it. Unlikely, but scary. How many Slashdotters have been in this situation, and what agreement did you and your management come up with?"
Use the laptop to remote in to your home computer and do your personal business on there.
I wont even allow my company to reimburse me for flash drives for this reason. It's way better to be safe when it comes to your personal data.
My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
You need to ask a lawyer. His answer will depend, at least in part, on documents you have signed as part of your employment, and on state law.
Personally, I know my company is too confused to ever go after me, my data, and my ideas after I leave, so long as I don't compete directly with them. I don't worry about their supposed ownership of my every thought and dream, despite signing those rights over to them.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Do everything in your power to keep your data and theirs separate. In fact I'd even recommend you stop doing their work on your hardware.
If they want to provide you with a company machine then let them.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
It creates an expectation that you will provide your own tools in every circumstance, and you shouldn't be subsidizing your company in any case. Create a line between your personal and business life or you will find that your personal life will erode away. That isn't fair to you or those in your personal life. No matter how much you love your job, it's still just a job at the end of the day. Don't be a sucker.
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I think the real question is why you're asking Slashdot instead of sitting down with your boss and hashing these issues out directly.
Aren't they cute when they are young and so naïve?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
P.S. IANAL so I could be mistaken.
That's the most important part of your post. I'm not a lawyer either, but I'm fairly confident that materials developed on company time or company property are defined as "work product" in a "work for hire" environment. I'd be extremely wary of presuming natural rights. The law is rarely completely reasonable, and work product is no exception.
A copyright assignment must be in writing. The exception is if it is work done by an employee in the course and scope of employment, but I doubt that writing the Great American Novel is in his job description. And if it were, the company would own it, whether or not they reimburse him for the laptop. So, while I hasten to point out that this is not legal advice, if the company owns your copyrights, they probably already own it by virtue of the employment agreement. They cannot purchase your copyrights by reimbursing you for a laptop. Note that there may, of course, be other ramifications. For example, if the laptop is "their" property, they may acquire certain "shop rights" if you use it to develop a technology that you later patent. And of course, the real answer is "get a lawyer if you're concerned about it." Of course, hiring a lawyer can easily exceed the reimbursement you get, so you've got to look at the tradeoffs.
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So your solution is simple:
Yes, it is. However, I'd offer that the solution is different than what you suggest. The simplest thing to do would be, have your employer buy you ANOTHER $1250 laptop expressly for work. Problem solved. Now you have an "air gap" between your life, and work life.
Why complicate things?
Or get a USB stick, or an external hard drive. A lot of this depends on your company's IT policies. It sounds like you work for a small company, so I would guess that you don't have much in the way of a computing security or config management department. If you're at one of those companies where you go to the "computer guy" , get an IP for your machine and away you go, they probably won't know/care if you have external storage for your machine.
But for heaven's sake, if you insist on keeping your stuff on the C: drive, put a self-destruct program on it that securely wipes your "Great American Novel" should your machine be seized by your corporate overlords.
Just make sure you have a ton of the nastiest (but keep it legal) pr0n on it when they do their initial checkout. That way it makes it harder for them to claim that you were surfing for that stuff at work. (You: "It was already there when the machine became a company asset")
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
Take the check for $1,250 and use it to buy a new laptop. You get a free laptop that you use for work-only, and keep the other one for personal stuff. I call that the best of both worlds.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Thank the boss for the offer, but make it clear that you don't want to blur the lines of ownership regarding your laptop and the associated software licenses. Suggest that, if he still wants to compensate you for all you do using your personal equipment on your own time, if he would consider making the payment a one-time cash bonus. That way, the payment is associated with wages and cannot be construed as being an employer reimbursement for business equipment to be used at home.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I was going to buy a cell phone, from a carrier that had better coverage in the areas I frequented than the cell phones provided by the company. As they were getting ready to get another cell phone anyway, I asked that the one assigned to me be reassigned, and that if I used my new personal phone for business they pay for those minutes or give me a stipend for phone use. Instead, they bought me a phone of the type and carrier I wanted, and said they would rather pay for personal calls than to hassle with the paperwork the stipend or reimbursement of the calls. It worked fine for years, then one day they called me in and said pack up and get out, hand over the keys and your phone. There was no time to pull off my phone list, or delete any text messages. I had some of the numbers in other places, but not all of them. And, I had to quickly go out and get a new phone and update everyone with the new number. Now, I carry two phones, one is mine,. one is theirs, and business and personal never combine. I would do the same with the laptop. But, I would make them buy the laptop, not take the money and buy one with it. That way there is no doubt which machine is theirs.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
If I got a cash bonus and bought a laptop, and partially used that laptop for work, everything on that laptop except the data belonging to the company would be mine.
What he should do, then, is ask for a $1250 bonus with no strings attached, or a note to make clear that the equipment was originally purchased by him and owned by him.
Besides, I'd rather have the $1250 and pay taxes on it then not get it at all... there's never any tax incentive to NOT get money (the same way you don't somehow magically save money by donating it).
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
First you need to prove it is yours (onus on you, at the spur of that moment - so tape the receipt to the drive) - to the person walking you out, with you while you grab your personal stuff. Secondly, they will want to remove any company from the drive, and won't take your word for it that there ain't none. So the now pissed off IT slave will scrape through your personal stuff anyway...
Many companies sort out what's yours and theirs after walking you out, so you're short on luck in that scenario.
We do not have a policy that intellectual property developed using company assets belongs to the company.
I will also hazard a guess that like the company I work for, the author of this question work for a company that treats him with respect. That does not demean him or act like he will screw them over. In fact I would say that they are betting that he will have the personal integrity not to do anything immoral much less illegal. In my experience that is a much better deterrent than any contract or legal wording.
Presumably, he would prefer having an extra $1,250.00 of discretionary money rather than having two laptops. It's not a cut-and-dry scenario.
It is cut-and-dry. You don't tell the boss about laptop number 2 because it's none of his business. It's like buying any other item for your personal use, like a box of condoms. Must that nosy boss know about everything I do outside of work?
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
...not in our company :) All USB boot options are firmware disabled, as well as booting from any CDs. If the default specified HDD doesn't boot, someone from support with a BIOS password has to get in and reset the machine to enable this, and the BIOS settings are editable by a software app from within windows to re-disable this feature once an image is installed.
on many systems across the company, the USB ports are disabled entirely. generally, only execs and select machines in the suppoort areas have USB enabled. Nothing has an optical writer. SD and other memory card readers on laptops are disabled, and all HDDs are either BIOS locked, or encrpyted to both prevent them from being stolen, and to prevent other HDDs from being booted internally.
It's a bit extreme, but we have more than 15,000 employees with access to PCs, and sensitive data on millions of americans... We have to take precautions.
We also have no wifi at all, NAC devices scanning all ports, and MAC address tracking of all assets.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Problem with the bonus is it's taxable. And you paid for the laptop with your cash after tax. You are out the taxed amount of money if they treat it as a bonus because it has to show up on their books. Bonuses in Canada are taxable as far as I know, but I am not an accountant.
In reality, I would keep the laptop for my own personal use or take it back to the store and say to the company if they would like to reemburse me, to have them buy me a work laptop instead.
Regarding personal data.. Its a bad idea to use company equipment for personal reasons.
1) backups are taken of all the data on the machine, so you can't know who is looking at your personal data. This is true of your encription methods. Maybe the company can't crack that partition, it doesn't change the fact that maybe some time in the future a method would be available. If the data is personal and important it doesn't belong on company equipment. It's just a bad idea.
My advice to OP: don't do it, even if you get it in writing. Even if you trust your boss. Even if it feels safe. The tide can shift in a snap, and you don't want to have to share ownership of all of your stuff when Sprint or Microsoft buy your company.
I disagree completely here; it makes little sense to turn down the money. It's your laptop, and you have the documentation to prove it. As a responsible computer user, you can backup all the personal data / media / software you care about on a home computer. If the very unlikely happens and you find the company has somehow superseded your clear ownership rights, the worst case scenario is that you lose a laptop for which you have already been reimbursed.
That seems extremely unlikely to happen, considering it's your laptop (they will have documentation of the reimbursement, but not the serial numbers, etc, which point to the exact machine, that you have). If it does, you have your personal data backed up, and can spend $1,250 on a (newer, faster, better) replacement and be better off than if you turned down the money and were 100% secure with your older hardware.
There isn't a lot of information but unless there are strings specifically attatched to the reimbursement, it is just that--a reimbursement.
I imagine this is quite similar to employers who do mobile phone or internet reimbursements in that they are offering it as a benefit and there is no transfer in ownership (though there may be some assumption of increased availability to work outside the office). When an employer reimburses you for personal vehicle use, they aren't claiming ownership on anything in your car...
This really seems to sum up the reality of the situation over the nightmare scenarios, but my point is the nightmare scenario is hardly that, so long as you do the backups you should be doing anyway.