Termination for cause upheld for breach of computer information access policy
Ontario's Labour Arbitration Board recently held that an employer did not overreact when it terminated an IT employee for cause after he used an employer computer to download, store and share thousands of copyrighted works including movies, TV shows, music tracks, games and pornographic material, totalling over half a terabyte of data. The board found that the employee violated the employer’s trust in him and acted in flagrant disregard for the employer’s computer information access policy over many years.