was. That being said, I think you can overcome this. You might have to take a step back in your career to come back from it but you can you bounce back. It can be exciting to know whats going to happen before it happens, even when the news itself isnt *that* thrilling. Theres truly no compelling reason to break confidentiality here. While some employers will accept the I take personal accountability and heres how I address it path, this probably does remove some employers from consideration. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information. Practice talking about it until you can truly pull it off. All rights reserved. What is the point of Thrower's Bandolier? Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. MUCH stronger. Telling the trusted friend was the fireable offense. Concepts like snitching, tattling, and ratting out dont apply in the workplace. Shouldnt she be in trouble too? and there she would be, going down with you. Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been. The awareness that anything sent in your work email is subject to FOIA and open records requests really varies.
Can You Get Fired for Opening a Phishing Email [Deep Research] You are of course welcome to your feelings, we all feel what we feel, but it sounds like your thoughts and beliefs havent settled to the fact that **your feelings are dead wrong**. I used to work at a public Zoo that was owned by the state, and so we were all state government employees. And while you felt mad at coworker, really youre mad at yourself. Then the stories died down and the pressure with it even though there were still occasional leaks. Im a journalist, so, yes. trouble, it doesnt seem applicable. This is a much more fulsome explanation of what I meant! Thats a horrendously burdensome thing to ask! And in this case, I beleive that is correct. Thank you for following up with Alison and here in the comments, and Im sorry for what youre going through. Ive represented or advised friends, friends of friends and the occasional famous person, and nobody else knows anything about it nor will they ever. If OP doesnt recognize and own up to that, thats going to be a bigger red flag for potential employers than if OP said, I made a mistake, learned from it, and it wont happen again.. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. Its ridiculous how much a speculator can get from very little information, and this is why keeping anything secret until it is announced is important. However, I will agree that, per OPs statement, the information appears to be unsolicited and doesnt seem like it would have been considered a records request (who knows, we dont have a lot of information and what we have has been proven to be distorted). Libel or slander or posting comments about individuals that are not related to your work environment are not protected. Its to LWs friends credit that she didnt pass on the info to a journalistic colleague who DOES work in that area; its not to LWs credit. My father worked on defense contracts for a large portion of his professional career. Im sorry it happened to you, though, and it definitely stinks. A member of the public wants some data, they contact anybody in the agency they can think of, the internal employees bounce it around because somehow they dont know who to send data requests to, and finally it gets to us and we respond. If youve no idea who the message was supposed to go to, simply let the sender know you received it by accident and move on. |. because your performance / screw-up affects them, or because they feel they are being compared to you and want to put the record straight to defend themselves), or out of a sense that they have an obligation to report (whether or not they actually do). All we know is that OP made a disclosure, and the coworker is aware the disclosure happened via Slack. I have news from my job that I cannot share with some coworkers. Equally, when we had a client who does the same job role as someone I know, I had to completely embargo that piece of information in my head, because I know that its a small field and my friend might recognise the detail I thought was vague enough to be anonymous. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. I was coming to the comments section to say the same thing. Im also not going to tell anyone else! What is the correct way to screw wall and ceiling drywalls? It also protects the coworker from any immediate threats or retribution by LW. That OP knew it was wrong and felt guilty about it is a sign of strength. I hope you find something good soon and can put this behind you. Im literally barred by policy from opening up my own files unless theres a work related reason I could lay out to do so.
I sent confidential documents to someone by accident via email - Google I see a lot of people saying that its always wrong to share confidential information with the press, and thats not necessarily true. They know it happens. Any info I pull, I have to be able to explain why I pulled it and what I was doing with it. LW is undisciplined and has a big mouth. Within hours, there were writeups on tech blogs about the new iPhone before its official release. I am very sure they didnt want to fire him. ), Because honestly, the more I thought about this letter as I read it, the more uncomfortable I got, too. It will get out, eventually. It doesnt matter that its a good friend of yours who happens to be a journalist shes a journalist, and her JOB is to tell people about things she finds out about. Has 90% of ice around Antarctica disappeared in less than a decade? It doesnt matter if your friend is a journalist or not; thats a total red herring. Because I said I wouldnt, I knew there would be consequences if something like your story happened to me, and also because, hows that going to look to a potential future employer that might value confidentiality equally highly? But fairly often it was classified to some degree, and he could only talk about how his project was going but not about what it was. I just want to remind people that it happened. Right? Oh my. OP can come up with steps to fix the real problem in their future jobs, but they cant really fix an evil coworker. The advance knowledge of something pending going public is a very powerful position. This is a tough lesson to learn. *(assuming that you did so)* She covers a totally different subject area so it never even crossed my mind that her career would be an additional conflict. Then b) she felt so guilty she admitted it to a coworker. Of course, if this happens regularly there is more chance of human error being made so it's always best to use a mailing program. I dont think it was over company lines. It also wasnt illegal to share it, because it was about a program or something that has now publicly been announced, so this doesnt even fall under the criminal aspect brought up in the original comment. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. Thats also real life. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. Oh, so LW cant keep a secret from her reporter friend or her coworker, but were ragging on the coworker for not keeping LWs secret? I had not thought about this issue via this lens, but I think youre 100% right. The embargoes I deal with are not earth-shaking (or even quivering), but the people involved are dead serious about not publicizing the information before a specific time. How do you approach company policy in general? Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. Candidate must then come up with a good reason why former employer wont re-hire given they merely eliminated the position. Its very dangerous to OPs professional reputation to assume OP can trust anyone who is unauthorized, including a good friend, with embargoed information. I think its also something to do with the fact that if you tell a journalist something newsworthy, youre not just talking, youre offering a thing of (potential) value, which is an entirely different action from sharing news with a friend. I dont know. Its so very context and field dependent. For excellent reasons. If you feel uncomfortable about a work rule you are clearly violating, your coworkers are not going to be thrilled that you get them out there on the plank with you. We all developed what we called the [cityname] twitch of looking over our shoulders before we talked about work stuff in a public place. There are different levels of confidentiality for different circumstances. In fact, if you are being sent overseas, you have to take a special counterintelligence training before you go that includes tips like dont wear items with your agencys name written on them while you travel and never park next to a panel van.. Confidentiality is a big deal for a lot of reasons, and people in those types tend to respect that. LW, first, I want to offer sympathy. It was super not personal, it was just a situation were second chances were not given, period. I arrived in 69. Dan is such a pain! Although it was mortifying at the time, this has taught me a hard but valuable lesson about handling sensitive information setting boundaries in my relationships with reporters. LW, you are too focused on using some incorrect details to mitigate the main point: you were a trusted professional who broke one of the most basic policies in the world of communications. Ideally. If you were fired for an embarrassing reason that would torpedo your chances in an interview, say that your position was eliminated. Id instantly think that youd learned nothing, that no information we kept around you would be secure, and that anything we brought to you as far as behavior we needed you to change would suddenly be labeled as victimless and only because *truly irrelevant fact here* and unfair. Did you apologize profusely and then explain that there was some miscommunication here? Sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise. Personal info is never OK to share with anyone, or things that could lead to recognizing a person if someone happens to know that person (and you never know who knows who). Its the only way they can maintain control of the information. What you did was misconduct. This isnt breaking a rule; its potentially putting your organization in jeopardy. Im also a public affairs officer for a government agency- one that almost exclusively deals with highly classified information. Later the coworker left the company and at company B was asked to write a similar report for the new company. Theres a great blog called SorryWatch (.com) that analyzes & critiques apologies made by public figures. Wait, what the friend is a *journalist*?. And it makes sense that it is. It may be that the decision is made and it is just a matter of time before you are gone. Look the UK Foreign Office is currently knee deep in a police investigation into information thats been leaked to journalists and the consequences are potentially extremely serious. I imagine there are a lot like that in government but he learned from working with a non apologetic, scandal plagued politician that consequences of what seems little to you may not be to the tabloids. Please keep reflecting on this. Its not about breaking a rule, its about potentially causing some serious issues by leaking information. If youre excited that your agency is moving into a new building or buying land someone could buy up the new building or land ahead of time for profit. Both of those would merit a reprimand, separately or together, but somehow in the telling it got turned into that the latter happened with the former as the method. the coworker had an obvious physical feature that the poster mentioned, so the company was able to figure out who was discussing it in a public place and *fired* them for it. She knew about a leak and didnt say anything, who knows what else she is helping to hide, My boss, in a well meaning way and to correct some weird barriers previously put in place by the person before him, told me openly that if Big Boss [aka the owner] asks you anything, just answer him, its all good, you dont need to filter things through me or anything., And I just tilted my head and laughed at him saying Even if you told me differently, I would tell him whatever he wants to know. Which given our relationship he just giggled and responded with of course and thats the way it should be.. Monitoring should not be excessive and the employee must know what will and won't be caught, for example, whether personal emails will be read. And there was no social media then, so 100+++ times that now. I want to push back hard on this, the coworker is not a rat. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! Sorry, Im tired and I think that metaphor got away from me. I agree with you! I dont think we fired anyone but the need for absolute confidentiality was reiterated. From a government point of view, the only thing that matters is this: LW was trusted to handle confidential information and keep it inside the agencys control; instead she passed that information to someone outside that permission (whose job is to disseminate information to the public!) Dont disagree feelings arent wrong but the way we think about them often is. You've learned from this mistake and had no malicious intent. The issue of whether HIPAA information can be emailed is complicated. Thats why they told you no. Coworker Dorcus, who used to write down what time the rest of us got in each morning so she could report to our supervisor when the rest of us were late, even though he hadnt asked her to, even though Dorcus had no idea when wed left the night before, how late we were working that day, or what arrangement we had with our supervisor? ugh, no if you cant tell them the actual news, dont tease it. Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. Your coworker was not at all in the wrong here, OP. What if there was another leak and someone found out that OP had told Coworker that she had leaked info previously, but didnt report it as she was supposed.
One Employee's Accidental Email Leads To A Significant Data Breach Acidity of alcohols and basicity of amines, Using indicator constraint with two variables. (For your job search, this might be obvious, but steer clear of medical, legal, PR, or any other field that deals with privacy.). Accidents happen inadvertently but this is not the case here. Never mind firing for leaks, they dont even hire people who appear to have poor judgement about confidential information. Organisations can set up static rules (for example, you can send emails to business A but not business B), but these traditional methods are rigid and unreliable. Take this to heart in your next position and deal with sensitive information. OOPS! I think she got paid in sandwiches and the knowledge she was the only woman to neck with Nero Wolfe, though. Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. It could also end poorly if the employer actually sees a job opening posted for the position the LW claims was eliminated. Just wanted to point out that OP said they worked in the government, so while yours might be the public understanding of confidential, it wouldnt apply to anything their job considered confidential. The fact that the LW just couldnt resist sharing this tidbit should have been a red flag that maybe her friend couldnt, either. I had to learn the hard way, Im afraid, but I did learn. I dont feel like we need that caveat though, there of course will be exceptions, but this is kinda derailing. I wouldnt be obligated by anything other than displaced loyalty if I wanted to try to be squirrelly of course but I respect myself way too much and have my own standards to just keep quiet about things. No, shes a person with ethics who plays by the rules. It can take down evil people who mean to do others harm.
Accidentally received confidential email | Email DLP Ugh, yes. The initial complaint filed against Google is currently under seal because the judge has asked the bank to redact the Gmail account from its filings. Or they might have a zero-tolerance policy for leaks as a deterrent. All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. Instead, youre better off with something like, The truth is, I was fired. If yes, that is relevant to the question. Or even if you sit at the bar and the llama design keeps crossing your mind and you talk before you think. So, either way my point remains. Im not understanding how OPs update comment reads as defensiveit shows significant progression from deflection to ownership, to me. I could have just sent the report and most likely no one would have ever known, but it would have been a violation of company policy. And I dont think it helps the OP to say that she doesnt have the right to have feelings of resentment toward the coworker. Humans, in general, are not geared towards confidentiality and secrecy long-term.
Can I Get Fired for Private Texts or Email Messages? | Money I have a whole bunch of very personal medical information swimming around my memory and I while some of it Ive wished I could share with my spouse, I never have. Even if you feel that way, definitely dont say that! 4) The coworker was absolutely right to report the breach in confidentiality. The heads on spikes of the modern workplace. But unfortunately, the rules of your job are such that you justcant. If theres anything else you can say about your work there to put this in context like that you had received a glowing performance review, were taking on increasing levels of responsibility, etc. OP should be counting their blessings they only got fired and be upset with themselves for making such an obvious and preventable error, not expecting a large bureaucracy to break its own rules to accommodate them. Depending on their responses it ranged from retraining, to suspension, to immediate dismissal.. Nowadays with mobile devices, email and the cloud, it is extremely easy to share files, easy enough that we may accidentally send and share them to the wrong person. Some offenses are serious enough that a single incident is enough to fire someone. I didnt read it that way, its not a question of the coworker being Untrustworthy, its a matter of the OP not being able to judge who she can trust to keep things quiet. In "Labs," scroll down to "Undo Send" and enable it. Its like winning the jackpot in a slot machine then declaring that you KNEW you were going to win, so it wasnt really gambling at all. Agreed. This is so true. Rules are there because its so easy to do that thing that feels harmless, and sometimes nobody gets hurt.. We literally filled a room with records for them, and 99% of it was people asking what flavor of donuts to bring to a meeting or requesting copies of informational flyers. Im not cleared for it. Things worked out this time, so I was right! If theyd covered up for her/not removed her access to confidential info and she did it again, their jobs would be on the line too the next time. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. It is not clear at this stage whether the 911 caller will be pursuing a civil claim for damages as a result of the privacy violation. But despite how liberal weve gotten with sharing information, you really do have to be very strict about upholding confidentiality policies without making any exceptions. As this was almost the entirety of your job they really couldnt keep you around. Even though he loves the MCU and would have enjoyed the anecdotes. Confidentiality, especially in government, is no joke and should be taken very seriously. Goes a long way to being the right way to describe this. I actually think your big mistake was telling your coworker, not telling a trusted friend. Extremely good advice! I imagine theres a section in the manual and training (possibly annually) about the great responsibility they bear around confidentiality and how people will try to scam them into breaching security, yet OP does not appreciate the weight of this. All mom did was hand dad the phone. In such cases, the employee should be given the benefit of the doubt. If that is so, there is nothing you can do to avoid the termination and you should be looking for new employment. (Even if its not an area she covers, she likely knows the person who does, and journalists share tips/info all the time.). But we have embargoes for a reason. Have you learned from your mistake? Are you being GDPR compliant in your marketing? Inadvertently, in my view, would be something along the lines of had confidential documents in a briefcase that you accidentally left behind at a coffee shop. If that puts it in perspective. Of course, it wasnt your mistake and youre under no legal obligation to do anything at all. would be frustrating if she had a good relationship with them, or if she cared a lot about the reputation of her publication as a whole. And they also need to have an acute understanding that the timing of disclosure makes a HUGE, TREMENDOUS difference.
What if I accidentally sent a work email to my personal email? Will I And, of course, some agencies dont have a policy and, when contacted can provided whatever info they feel is relevant. It can bring vital information to the public who have a right to know. Separately, when you share, you have to still be oblique enough to not get yourself in trouble. Yes! Unfortunately accepting responsibility doesnt always work in some workplaces, it just digs your hole. Man I am swamped with the publicly known project I am barely treading water. Yeah, if the LW is in the US or things operate the same way in their country, theres no point in trying to lie or even waffle about what happened. I went to my boss explained the situation and let me boss make the decision if we wanted to share the report. Agreed. . I personally just try to forget that I know until the information becomes public. It being Silicon Valley, not only was the phone found, it was immediately identified for what it was. Confidential information is meant to be confidential and not shared with anyone. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. I wish I lived in your country. Perhaps the way you feel (felt?) Why is it so hard for people to just keep their (figurative) mouth shut? The best solution for avoiding misdirected email altogether is through human layer security. If something like this would help, maybe try it. The LW blabbed, why would her friend have more self-control? That being said, it doesnt change the fact that OP shouldnt have done it anyway, so harboring ill will towards this coworker is pointless. OP erred, which she knows, but I dont think that means her mentor no longer has the obligation to be honest with her. I would also lay odds that when LW says Coworker was understandably very uncomfortable with what I did, and we had a very nice conversation about our duties as communication officers, and trust, etc., that means that despite what LW thought about it being a nice confidential chat, her mentor figure was trying to imply to her that she was going to HAVE TO report the incident, because trust and responsibility. 2. Those usually come out the morning of the speech. Share information about a Harry Potter book before it being officially released? I reminded him that anything sent in our work email is subject to FOIA and not really completely private from our employer, so if he was going to continue to work against the plan, use personal email. Its understandable youre upset, but I wouldnt have given you a second chance either. Yes you can. In addition to 100% needing to own it when asked about it, I think OP may also benefit from focusing the job search on jobs that dont involve handling sensitive or high profile information. It could be that she did (and I think no employer should ever fire anyone without hearing their version of the story) but the employer still thought its bad enough that they need to fire OP. Like I said, very strange but its worked for me. Replying to the sender is a good thing to do for a couple of reasons. Journalists discuss things all the time that dont make it into published stories, or make it into stories that get killed, or get used for shaping further investigation, or even just as gossip. Yep, I think its worth LW remembering that while she knew shed never leak anything again, her boss and co-workers dont. Yeah it totally sucks but now you at least have a chance to start fresh. TootsNYC is talking about this latter case. And if weve learned anything from this letter, its that information thats supposed to be kept secret isnt always. Im more curious about what KIND of exciting information it was. In addition to Alisons script, I think it also reflects well on you that you reported what you had done. Accept responsibility for what you did. Ah! I agree with Alisons response. Can you explain to us what you learned? These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. This is one reason why I could only ever give a vague explanation of what my dad did. Also, Ive seen plenty of firings that were absolutely not presented as position elimination. Even if the exact reason wasnt shared employer isnt going to say Oh, Jane took home a spreadsheet full of MNPI they will absolutely share that the ex-employee was fired for cause, not laid off. "Even if it were, transmitting some personal data by email does not of itself breach data protection laws in any jurisdiction" Actually in the UK the Data Protection Act would apply as it is being transmitted outside of the company without the express authorisation from the data subject. More employers are still going to be turned off by that than impressed. I imagine optimal framing varies by industry and so Im not sure what to advise there. Agreed, that immediately got on my nerves. Better to say in a single instance of poor judgment I let a piece of information get outside of the company to one person which I immediately knew was a mistake and I notified someone in my company. No, no, no, no, no. You could say that, but itd be a lie, which would be an automatic dealbreaker for many potential employers, and theres no guarantee that the previous employer would keep the cause for firing secret.