My mother has just left her job as manager of a company. In doing so, the work laptop she used stayed at the company. My sister remains an employee of this company. In a private facebook message between my mother, my sister and another employee they were asking my mother some work based questions. Friday had just gone and the new boss of this company called a meeting with my sister and other employee and was using specific details that could only be obtained from those private messages and disciplined the employees for discussing work information to anyone no longer in the company, which was never before mentioned to them.
On trying to figure out how this new boss could have possibly come across this information, it became clear that it was done by using either my mother's old work laptop or my sisters existing work laptop and using the saved password to login to one of their private facebook accounts and read through this private conversation. Is this not a breach of privacy and isn't this illegal under Australian Law or Employment Law?
Not only that, it was not discussed in a business account that should have been accessed or monitored by the new boss, but that the information gathered then, in turn, was used to gain standing for disciplinary action.
On trying to figure out how this new boss could have possibly come across this information, it became clear that it was done by using either my mother's old work laptop or my sisters existing work laptop and using the saved password to login to one of their private facebook accounts and read through this private conversation. Is this not a breach of privacy and isn't this illegal under Australian Law or Employment Law?
Not only that, it was not discussed in a business account that should have been accessed or monitored by the new boss, but that the information gathered then, in turn, was used to gain standing for disciplinary action.
