Are text messages covered by the data protection act? A collueges nutsy wife pretended to be him and had a text conversation with another colluege. The wife then sent to the boss. He hates this other colluege and went to personnel at the time and asked if he could take any action on them and they said no cos they didn't actually say anything and he shouldnt have had them really. He has however saved them and is trying to use them as evidence in another issue. Can he do this?
why would the wife do this?
was she intentionally trying to destroy her husband career?
this would be something you would have to prove - which frankly sounds like an excuse for being found out.
also if someone sends a message to my phone, it becomes my message and my business, so i don't see why he shouldn't have them - its not like he tapped in, or stole the phone.
ok I'll try and make it clearer. The text msg thing was a while ago but has become an issue again. They were going on a client holiday and his wife didnt want him to go so she was trying to trap the lady at work into saying something incriminating to try and stop the holiday going ahead (trying to prove they were getting it on or something, they're not). The lady at work did however say please dont leave me alone with the other guy who was going, cos he is absolutley pants at his job and we've all been making complaints about him since he started. As I said nothing was done about it at the time cos it was all just his mad wife.
The crap guy has now made a complaint about this girl (shes our deputy manager) cos our house manager is leaving and he doesnt want her to get the job cos he knows she knows all the things hes done and lied to get away with etc. The big boss man wants to use the text as evidece cos he is a horrible nasty man and he's been out to get her for ages. I just wanted to know if he could use these in evidence against her (the complaint is complete nonsesnse btw). They guy making the complaint didnt know about thses messages so the boss is trying to add them into his complaint. So are text messages that he should not have had in the first place and has already been told that no action could or should be taken on able to be used or does the data protection act cover them?
Hope that makes a bit more sense. Hope no-one from my work comes on here :/ but just trying to help her out cos there trying to **** her over again.
I am afraid these text messages wont be taken into account as evidence, anyone whoever had that phone could have sent them, or indeed pretended to be the collegue in question and/or the nutsy wife - anyone (frined or foe) could have had access to and used the mobile phone in question so therefore its a weak bit of evidence - sorry to say. It all sounds very playground like and indeed extremely juvenile - office politics huh??