Am I Liable?

Hi,

I'm in computers and my question is, if a customer comes to me with a email/hard drive etc and wants me to get access to it or recover information. If they say it belongs to them but turns out for whatever reason in the future it is not. Am i liable or is it the business or person that said it was theirs.

Scott

 

I think it could fall back on you by virtue of the fact that it should be *OBVIOUS* by what's on the hard drive as to who the info/data belongs to. How could there possibly be any doubt?

 

You might get some idea about this if you refer the DISCLAIMER page of any reputed data recovery company.

My suggestion would be to get a legal document signed from your customers before you try to access or recover any kind of data from the media they submit. It should include a clause, preferably in bigger font size and bold letters, which clearly mentions that you are NOT responsible in ANY way for ANY use/misuse of the data in question. Another precaution you might consider taking is asking your customers for some valid identification before they decide to apply for and use your services. It is easily possible to fake an ID, so better check into its legitimacy before accepting. This way, even if perchance you are ever considered liable for any illegal data usage, the IDs will serve as a good defense.
N.B. - These ways are NOT absolutely foolproof but may help you to get over some unforeseen troublesome situation.

My 2c. Hope this helps.

 

this fairly simple, if jones comes to you and says he needs your help to unlock
whatever device, and you find out the device belongs to smith, then resolve
any doubt or liability by letting the police know...you did not know upfront
that jones may have been lying...but if you knew upfront, then that is another story....

 

Content Maestro has it right. The only thing that I would add is that the statement that your customer signs should unequivocally state that the device and the data on it are legitimately owned by your customer who has full rights to it.