How to request the password on a company's laptop that is dedicated for me?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I started working with this startup company 5 months ago. From the first day I started, they got me a laptop dedicated for me and I have been using it since then.

last week, we had a push as we arrived to a deadline. Due to my manager's issue with his laptop, we had to deploy the release version from my laptop.

On Sunday night, where Monday was the representation of the release, we were putting the final touches and we were supposed to take Monday off. My Manager asked for access to my laptop, since he will be in the morning around the marketing team and support them for any urgent easy fixes.

I gave full access (current password) with all my personal stuff still on it (Chrome favorites and bookmarks, passwords Gmail... etc.)

When I came on Tuesday, I noticed an Admin User different than my usual user, which has a password that I don't know.

I don't know to what stuff they have access in that user and I feel I have the right to ask. How can I do that properly?

manpreet 2 years ago

Here's a lesson learnt: the company-provided computer and everything on it is the company property. The company, and by extension any of its employees with sufficient authority, can do with that computer whatever they want at any time. You should not store any information on it that you don't want other people to access.

You can, of course, ask if they have accessed any of your personal information on the laptop and if yes, what they did with that information. Be prepared, however, to hear in response something that boils down to the paragraph above. It might also seem awkward, as you would be implying that you suspect the person to purposefully access your private information.

Imagine leaving a private letter, face down, on your work desk and then seeing someone standing next to it; would you confront that person asking if they have by chance read your letter?

Besides, there's not much you can do now regardless of what their answer might be, except may be making sure you remove any private information from the laptop and stop saving passwords to your private email and social media accounts.

A couple of other points:

• If you normally performed your work on the computer using a non-admin account, you would not need to give administrator privileges to another person (your manager) and they would not then have a chance to create another administrator login.

• It's not clear from the question if your usual account's administrator privileges have been revoked, or simply another admin user has been created. If it's the former, and you legitimately need admin privileges to do your job, you are within your rights to request that your admin privileges be restored, but you should be prepared to prove you really need them. If it's the latter, you can ask if that new account is not needed anymore and could be removed.