When an employee leaves, it is often a first step for the business that his personal access to their professional mailbox is cancelled as soon as possible (often even during the exit meeting). But most often that mailbox will remain open for quite some time after the termination, as there is a genuine business concern that e-mails may still come in after the termination that are of entirely legitimate interest to the company, such as in relation to orders or ongoing matters requiring to be picked up by someone else.
An increasing number of employees appear to be concerned by this practice, and request that their former professional e-mail address be cancelled immediately. Such requests are noted by the employer but (deliberately or otherwise) aren’t always followed up too diligently, as demonstrated by a couple of recent decisions of the Litigation Chamber of the Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA). These cases have allowed the DPA to refine its position on the matter and its conclusions and resulting guidelines, as summarised below, should be of interest to all companies with employees and consultants in Belgium.
With respect to the e-mail address and mailbox of a former employee or consultant, the Belgian DPA considers the following:
The DPA accepts that an employer may invoke a legitimate interest (article 6.1 f) GDPR) to leave a professional e-mail account open for a certain period of time after the termination, as there may still be interesting e-mail coming in....
Nana, a former member of the group After School, announced the progress of the investigation into the home invasion robbery and resented that the perpetrator continued to make false claims without ...