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Disciplinary forTaking Work Laptop Abroad?

59 replies

good96 · 14/01/2023 18:46

I’ve just seen someone post on Facebook that they received a final written warning for taking their work laptop abroad on holiday! Has the world gone bonkers? I have taken my work laptop before abroad when I went away for 2 weeks and everything ok…
but this just seems unjustified?

OP posts:
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Unescorted · 14/01/2023 21:52

I have no data on my work laptop but would still be sacked if I took it out of the country. Our IT policy clearly says don't and the consequence is immediate dismissal.

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GlassBunion · 14/01/2023 22:07

My husband had a work laptop. He was never allowed to use it for pleasure. Only for work usage. He wasn't even allowed to take it out of the house! ( wfh) To be fair there was a gadget that monitored it very closely but his job involved high levels of security.

A final written warning sounds like previous breeches of security /unauthorised usage happened.

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Littlewhitecat · 14/01/2023 22:18

I'm a civil servant and it's a sackable offence for me to take my work phone or laptop overseas unless authorised. This is made very clear to everyone in my department.

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Namechangingagain111 · 14/01/2023 22:26

I work for a large UK company and it's a sackable offence to lose our laptops....

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AnneElliott · 14/01/2023 23:34

It would be a disciplinary for us - in civil service. We can't take our work phone or laptop abroad without permission.

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FKATondelayo · 14/01/2023 23:39

If you work with intellectual property eg publishing this would be a very serious breach of any copyright / antipiracy policies. Also potential data protection issues, especially if moving outside territories governed by GDPR.

I've absolutely no idea why anyone would take their work laptop on holiday without permission.

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strumpert · 15/01/2023 07:20

I don't know why you're so surprised

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MountedbyHarryWindsor · 16/01/2023 08:29

Sounds as though the person expected to go on holiday whenever they liked, work from beside the pool, and that would be fine - no need to tell boss / get annual leave booked in. Wrong!
Also as PPs have said, there's likely to be all sorts of policies around security.
Some behaviour at work can be so serious it goes straight to final warning.
I'd never complain on social media as that in itself, if found, could consititute another warning. Plus its always one sided.
Are you the laptop user OP?

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Reugny · 16/01/2023 08:44

I've only ever worked for one company where I could work from any EU country I wanted while the UK was in the EU.

All other companies/organisations stipulated I had to work from the UK due to data security, national security and/or financial regulations. With the latter I was working with people across the globe but certain data couldn't leave the UK so they had no access to it.

Every single company/organisation has made me do GDPR, data security and financial regulation courses on it so I could get sacked if did so as some of the courses have been yearly.

Oh and it's a breach of company/organisation rules to post about the disciplinary on social media.

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