RE: Corporate policy question - Personal Laptops

["Vogels, Mark" <mvogels () amgen com>]

 Hi Tom,

If the laptop is personal as in private, then I don't see (in my country at least) any reason why you would be allowed 
to even keep the laptop, let alone destroy the data on it.
If the laptop is company provided, then it's a different story.

Kind regards,

Mark Vogels


-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com] On Behalf Of Tom Yarrish
Sent: donderdag 11 september 2008 19:54
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Corporate policy question - Personal Laptops

Hey all,
Needed some advice on a corporate policy issue.  If an employee has a personal laptop in the office, and that employee 
is terminated in the process of a merger, can the company wipe the hard drive of the personal computer before it's 
returned to that employee?  Here's the
scenario:

Our company is going through a merger, and through the rounds of "integration" of the two companies, employees that are 
let go from the IT department are escorted out of the building immediately, and not allowed to return. Their manager 
packs up their personal affects and ships it to them.  In one case, the employee had some personal laptops in their 
office, and wants them back (obviously).  Are we allowed to wipe the hard drive of that personal laptop before giving 
it back to the employee?

I'm trying to determine if this is even legal or not, so I'm not sure where to look for advice.

Thanks ahead of time....