There is a lot more to this than just a couple of posts here. Undoubtedly, there is quite a story of which we will never even come near.
I bet the Line Manager and the staff are members of the same trade union.
Slaps16, did the Line manager order the email destruction orally or by email?
Leper it might be against some Civil Service rule to forward the emails to the home address.
@OPid your friend receive or provide information about the 3rd party in these emails? What is the effect of these emails and what would be the impact of their disclosure to the 3rd party? Is there some wrongdoing/conspiracy afoot in HR terms? It may be that sensitive, personal information is circulating on email and the risk of a data breach is high, so the HR manager wishes to reduce this risk for the protection of the organisation and/or the 3rd party. If the organisation reaches a decision in relation to the 3rd party, the FOI legislation compels them, if asked, to provide a statement of reasons for same. This is in addition to the usual IR processes and court as a last resort.
As the HR manager has given these instructions in an email, I would be inclined to give (him) the benefit of the doubt here but retain the instruction for future protection. Your friend needs to ask him/herself if the destruction of the emails could be detrimental to the 3rd party and fair play in relation to his/her employment. Your friend could always do nothing, for now. Once an FOI request is received for the information, it would be an offence to delete it then, up to €4,000 fine.
This is incorrect. If you look at the reports of the Office of the Information Commissioner you will see cases where the Commissioner has ruled if a public body has taken all reasonable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of a record, and this includes searching for and recovery from backups. Likewise the Data Protection Commissioner has ruled e.g. where an organization has a legitimate interest in monitoring staffs' use of IT systems this can include monitoring backups.. These backups are not usually subject to Data Protection or FOI access requests, though.
This would possibly constitute a breach of the Official Secrets Act 1963, in that the person is retaining an official document or official information where he has no right to retain it or is not required to retain it by his duties as a public servant.From where I sit, (i) I suggest the relative emails be forwarded to his/her home email address and stored there for whenever they might be needed. I suggest this should be done immediately and any further "evidence" sent the same way.
Where a record cannot be found, the search must be adequate and, in some cases, may be extended to 'backups'. A backup record is not covered by the Data Protection legislation.This is incorrect. If you look at the reports of the Office of the Information Commissioner you will see cases where the Commissioner has ruled if a public body has taken all reasonable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of a record, and this includes searching for and recovery from backups.
They are, and the legal definition of a backup is provided in the legislation. While you do not have right of access to a backup record under DP legislation, they are within the remit of the legislation and the Data Protection Commissioner has treated backups in both guidelines and decisions. Also the DP legislation is not irrelevant to this case. If the e-mails contain personal information, the friend is arguably a data processor and possibly a data controller within the meaning of the Acts and therefore had certain legal responsibilities related to this role.A backup record is not covered by the Data Protection legislation.
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