Avoiding Liability While Fixing Employee PCs?

ellem asks: "The upper management team of my company has made a decision that the IT department will work with employee's home computers and laptops. Despite every possible explanation of liability and the loss of proprietary information, the decision was made in order to satisfy a 'need' that the employees have expressed. Many of our employees are, in fact, independent contractors and could go elsewhere with little impact to themselves. Upper management feels offering this service to our employees will separate us from our competitors, and is so committed to this that they have allocated a special budget for tools, software and new hires to handle this particular segment of IT. However, I am still rather worried about general liabilities. While I can keep the network relatively safe and guard against certain types of file transfers, the fear I have is a tech wrecking an employee's home machine/laptop - whether they actually do or the employee perceives that they did. Are any of your shops offering this type of extra service? Do you have any policies in place to protect your company from liabilities that could spring up?"

This is easy...

[__aaclcg7560]

1. Maintain a fast server with plenty of storage space.
2. Get a good disk imaging program to make a full backup before any work is done.
3. ???
4. Have updated resume listed on all major job search websites.

Re:This is easy...

[auspiv]

3.5. Profit!!!

Re:First things first:

[RobertLTux]

no no no you
1 create the image
2 check it into a forensic quality workspace
3 do your scans
4 forward the evidence to ....

CHAIN OF CUSTODY MUST REMAIN INTACT

Re:A couple of points.

[dwandy]

SINSFARL

holy F*!%$^!!! I had no idea.

is this new!?!?
was there a warning somewhere?

and most importantly: can I sue someone now that I know this?

Re:A couple of points.

[plover]

Well, I orginally was going to write IANAL, but then a case of 'duh!' set in. What kind of person asks legal advice on Slashdot? We need something like SINSFARL; or maybe one of those form letters for Ask Slashdot:

You posted a(n)

• [ ] inane
• [ ] insane
• [ ] incomprehensible
• [ ] off-topic
• [ ] pointless
• [ ] frequently-asked

question on Ask Slashdot.

Your question deserves one or more of the following replies:

• [ ] Don't ask Slashbots for legal advice. They are not lawyers.
• [ ] Slashbots will get it wrong as often as they get it right.
• [ ] Your topic is controversial and will only start a flame war.
• [ ] Your topic has only one correct answer and that is: _______, and you should have been smart enough to recognize that.
• [ ] Your question has been asked on a weekly basis, please follow this link: ________ for the most recent answer.

In addition, you are:

• [ ] foolish
• [ ] a troll
• [ ] pedantic

Re:A couple of points.

[Tankdagger]

I would suggest that if you want to provide this service, outsource it to another company. It appears this organization already uses contractors exetensively, so why not hire someone who can absorb the liability if something goes wrong during repairs?