The United States Supreme Court recently granted a petition for certiorari in Van Buren v. United States addressing the issue of whether it is a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) when an individual who is authorized to access information on a computer, accesses the same information for an improper purpose. The
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District Court Finds no CFAA Violation where Employee Shares Confidential Company Information with Competitor
By Jason C. Gavejian & Maya Atrakchi on
A district court in Tennessee recently concluded in Wachter Inc. v. Cabling Innovations LLC that two former employees who allegedly shared confidential company information found on the company’s computer system with a competitor did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA expressly prohibits “intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding…
Third Circuit Rules in Favor of Employer Who Monitored Former Employees’ Social Media Accounts
On February 25, 2019, the Third Circuit held that a New Jersey engineering firm that monitored its former employees’ social media accounts was not barred from winning an injunction to prevent four former employees from soliciting firm clients and destroying company information.
In this case, several employees left the engineering firm to start two competing…
Use Of Personal Cloud-Based Document Accounts Requires New Strategies By Employers
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Whether Google Docs, Dropbox, or some other file sharing system, employees, especially millennials and other digital natives, are increasingly likely to set up personal cloud-based document sharing and storage accounts for work purposes, usually with well-meaning intentions, such as convenience and flexibility. Sometimes this is done with explicit company approval, sometimes it is done with…
Employee Criminally Prosecuted For Taking Employer’s Documents
By Jason C. Gavejian on
Posted in Workplace Privacy
A New Jersey Appellate Court recently ruled that an employee who removes or copies her employer’s documents for use in her whistleblower or discrimination case may be prosecuted criminally for stealing. In State v. Saavedra, the employee had taken highly confidential original documents owned by her employer, contending that she did so to support…