Being stalked by my close colleague at work for 8 months (Gossip and Rumours)

sevenhills

tevezratman said:

The messages were linked to my personal mobile. Personal information such as wife's and children's passports, bank statements and visa documentation was shared on the platform. If the personal could cyber stalk me for 8 months how much of my personal information has he downloaded or copied.

Why do you think they might copy your information? Is he/she a ordinary person or does he/she have a criminal record?

unforeseen

You used that company pc for 8 months and never thought it strange that you never had to log in to WhatsApp on it? 

tevezratman

I only used that shared computer once to access WhatsApp. Normally I use my personal iPad to access it on my desk so the session must have remained active. That's why on a couple of occasions I heard WhatsApp notifications at the same time which made me believe it was still signed in. His facial reaction when he found out his 3.5mm headphones were not plugged in properly gave it away

Dakta

It all boils down to what do you want to acheive? (I know this has been asked umpteen times without answer).

The computer seems to be open for use by all and sundry, so I think its fairly on you that you failed to logout/secure your account, it doesn't seem like they've taken advantage of this other than reading messages - so I don't consider it stalking just inappropriate. Effectively you've made this data available to them though you'd think some common decency would kick in with regards to reading something you know is likely available in error. 

Most aggravating thing I think is the time factor as this is over a prolonged period that you suspect someone has failed to raise this or used it to read this information you made available for this period - in which case most logical thing I would suspect is collect the evidence you have and follow your greivance policy.

What do you want to acheive?

TBagpuss

I agree with the previous posters asking what are you seeking?

I agree that it is unsettling to think he's been seeing personal messages, but what do you want to do?

You could consider speaking to HR and stressing that you are concerned that he could see you had forgotten log out and that he apparently then continued reading private messages and never said anything to you, but if he denies it it's your word against his.

There's also the issue of whether you are allowed to use your work PC for personal use of this kind .

If you don't want to raise it with HR then you can take it was a reminder to make sure you are careful about logging out of personal sites or apps .

It's up to you whether you want to mention it directly to him or to anyone who made comments, but you would have to be careful as making accusations without proof could result in you being perceived as attacking or bullying him, depending on what you said. A brief comment or email to the team saying you recently found that you'd accidentally failed to log out and that someone had then been reading your private, personal messages and family photos, and didn't have the decency to log out or give you a heads up, so they might all want to check they haven't inadvertently left any accounts logged in might be a way of flagging up that there is someone in the team who thinks it is OK to read personal messages, without explicitly naming or calling him out.

It's possible, as others have said, that people who made comments to you were trying to give you a hint that he (or someone) seemed to have seen private photos or messages - they may not have known how or where) . Equally, it's possible that they thought you had shown him and were trying to hint that that might be a bit inappropriate - it's difficult to judge without the details

WhiskersTheWonderCat

I think you are making a lot of assumptions. You have no idea whether he actually read through your conversations. I think you're probably just imagining the worst, and are probably paranoid at what could have been read/seen. But you have no evidence that he did read your conversations. Though, if this was the web version of WhatsApp, it would surely require making a conscious effort to keep returning to that web page. Assuming he was actually on it when you heard that notification. Could have been a coincidence. 

robatwork

I do hope the OP comes back at some point to update on the outcome. Sadly his posting history would suggest otherwise.