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How IT Pros Can Avoid Legal Trouble

Posted by Soulskill on from the don't-listen-to-michael-bolton dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter S. Vogel reports on the kinds of inadvertent transgressions that could land IT pros into legal trouble without realizing it. From confidentiality and privacy negligence, to copyright and source code violations, IT staff are legally liable for a lot more than they might think — in some cases because the law will not stop at your employer, instead holding individual IT employees responsible for violations even if the individuals are just 'doing their job.' Worse, as the recent case against Terry Childs has shown, judges and juries are often not technically savvy enough to understand what IT pros do. 'That lack of understanding can lead them to conclude you're at fault or should have known better,' Vogel writes. 'After all, many people think anyone technical is a whiz kid or brainiac on any topic.'" What legally questionable scenarios have cropped up at your job?

6 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Liability by nhaines · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm liable for first posts.

    1. Re:Liability by skids · · Score: 5, Funny

      As long as you caught them forking children, I don't think anyone will mind.

      --
      Someone had to do it.
  2. Premeditated murder by Peach+Rings · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm a medical equipment technician at a California corrections facility. My boss routinely asks me to kill people in cold blood, and I've been doing it for a few years now... there's a lot of paperwork and everything, but I'm not entirely sure it's legal.

    Does anyone else have experience with being ordered to kill somebody as part of their IT duties?

    1. Re:Premeditated murder by Surt · · Score: 4, Funny

      When I had to do that, I couldn't live with the moral qualms, so what I did, I hooked up the kill mechanism to a web server, and created this animated ad where if you punched the monkey it would kill the person.

      --
      "Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
  3. Har Har by poliscipirate · · Score: 4, Funny

    'After all, many people think anyone technical is a whiz kid or brainiac on any topic.'

    Obviously, they've never visited slashdot.

  4. Re:Blackberry Enterprise Server by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the device is hooked up to a corporate BES server, then they can already read all of your sms / email.

    I pointed this out to a friend that uses her personal blackberry to access her company e-mail. Her response was "So what?" Then I asked her, "Don't you use text messaging to order that dried up plant material that's illegal in all 50 states?"

    She bought a droid the very next day.....

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.