An employee who was terminated from the American College of Education (ACOE) demanded a clean letter of recommendation and $200,000 for turning over a Google password.
Triano Williams was employed by ACOE as an IT employee. In 2016, ACOE consolidated its operations and asked all employees to move to Indianapolis or resign. Williams did not want to move and refused to resign. ACOE kept him employed as an IT administrator until April 2016.
Williams changed the administrative password on an ACOE Google account before he left. The account held a large amount of data of ACOE.
ACOE reached out to Google, who said they could only restore access to the owner of the account, which was Williams. When ACOE contacted Williams for the password, he demanded money and a letter of recommendation. ACOE filed suit against Williams and received a default judgment.
All employers should learn from this incident and make sure their accounts and passwords are owned by the employer, not the individual. Proper structuring of cloud service provider and other accounts can prevent potential problems with access.
Posted by BAS - 02 February, 2017
