Judgement errors tend to repeat themselves. Or if the coworker only decided afterwards this couldnt be kept in the dark, call her and tell her this. We wont tell anyone. Thats a good friend but you put her in a bad position. That doesnt mean youre a horrible person who should never work again! The thing is, its a big deal that you were given confidential information and then texted it to a friend. Ramp up your privacy settings across all accounts. How you analyze the situation and internalize the lesson is more important than wording for future employers right now. It will also help you to not repeat the mistake in the future. Loved your opening act for Insolent Children, btw. You got a hard hit, and I am sorry for all the difficulty that causes. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. (Many of these claims have to be handled by specialists who have security clearance, but not all of them.). Its definitely not a spur if the moment decision. The Expert above is not your attorney, and . Received confidential email not for you? | Email DLP | Egress :) :) :) :) Being a wealthy heiress and a socialite IS a full-time job! The violation was only victimless by accident and confidentiality rules dont hinge on whether or not the leak is known to have caused damage. Its to prevent covering of tracks or retaliation or extinction bursts (Im about to be caught for X may as well make the punishment worthwhile and do Y and Z too, or if they are acting with deliberate malign intent Im caught, better leak as much as possible asap). If its obvious who the email was intended for, just forward it on and cc the original sender, letting them know what youve done. LW best of luck! Noooooo. I understand your irritation with your former coworker. So mention it only if explicitly asked. One of the things that is emphasized very heavily at my agency is that your own perception of how important a piece of information is does not give you enough information to decide if its really a big deal. Thats a big deal. It was absolutely drilled into all of our heads during grad school and training that you can never, ever do this. Im also a public affairs officer for a government agency- one that almost exclusively deals with highly classified information. For what its worth, one thing I noticed from your letter is language that sounds very social, discussing your trust in your friend, being ratted out by your mentor, not being given a second chance, and so on. What is the correct way to screw wall and ceiling drywalls? Everything from whats going to be on sale for Black Friday, to customer financial data. Preventing email data loss in Microsoft 365. Im excited about the project I started today or Something cool is happening at work would be fine to say in most situations. But your framing of this does sound defensive and doesnt sound like youre taking responsibility for what happened. One of my friends is working on projects that she cannot list on her resume now that shes applying to jobs and I only know that because Im looking at it and she told me shes frustrated because she has good work that she can quantify but cant talk about yet. I did something similar over 20 years ago. Egress Intelligent Email Security is an example of human layer security, as its able to adapt to your individual behaviour through machine learning. When an employer says something is confidential, take it seriously If a breach is proved, the employee may be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages Howard Levitt Published Aug 01, 2019 Last updated Oct 28, 2019 4 minute read Join the conversation Best of luck in your next job! And, of course, some agencies dont have a policy and, when contacted can provided whatever info they feel is relevant. Recurring theme here is that tattling isnt a thing at work. I have a friend whose mother did work for an intelligence agency during WW2. One of my coworkers saw another coworker sexually harassing a woman. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. One of the things your field requires is to be able to think and act dispassionately about the information you have custody over. The first person needs to understand that most of the time, you arent entitled to negotiate a yes, because the answer is no. The only thing even slightly puzzling is why during the conversation with the mentor, mentor didnt say you do understand I am obligated to report this? Maybe mentor thought that might prompt LW to do something track-covering so it was better left going directly to the bosses without warning. OP: Good luck to you, OP, with getting over this one. OP has been mature about admitting fault, lets not undermine that by implying it was no big deal. Let me be clear she did not leak it. 'Pay Secrecy' Policies At Work: Often Illegal, And Misunderstood Im not sure what the best way is to address this, but were trying! On the non-security side of things its fascinating to learn what the folks in the booth behind me are working on as Im quietly eating lunch, but its a serious security violation to discuss that kind of thing in public and it makes me cringe so hard when it happens. Everyone messes up. This issue recently came up for me as an interviewer. They have absolutely no obligation to keep secrets for government agencies or private companies. Thats not how embargoes work, and the reasons why we have embargoes are important and valid, even if they may seem like not a big deal in the context of a specific disclosure. 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. Im confused about the fact-finding meeting. Im pretty sure the information wasnt actually confidential in the legal sense. This is just an opportunity to choose words that allow for the most generous possible interpretation (similar to how you say with a friend rather than with a journalist). Really? I was fired for technically breaking a rule but it was my first offense, and nothing bad actually happened, and Im definitely learned my lesson. 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. I have worked and volunteered at government-related organizations before. I would have been fired if I did any one of the things OP did when I worked for the feds (e.g., using Slack, speaking to a journalist without authorization even if they were a long-time friend, disclosing soon-to-be-public information before it was publicly available). I come across soooo much incidental information about people I know in the course of this job. Oh, its possible to be a rat in the workplace. I work in the auto industry in media communications. LW, I work under some pretty hefty NDAs (currently, Im working on a project where the security protocols themselves are considered to be non-shareable with anyone who doesnt have a business need for them and hasnt also signed an NDA. I sent a compromising message to the wrong person. How will I ever In 2014 or so, I once slapped a superior in the face because they were yelling in my face because I was stepping on freshly mopped floors. Confidential email sent to wrong address? | Email DLP | Egress OP I dont want to pile on, many people have made the point that this would be a very big deal in many industries, and that your coworker was not responsible for your being fired, and indeed may have been obligated to report the violation. You may not even realise your mistake until the person you meant to send the message to says they didn't receive it (or you have a flurry of missed phone calls, as in Serena Williams . None of this makes you a bad person, untrustworthy, or unemployable. The type of violation you are talking about normally only applies to confidential (shall close) records and not non-public (may close) records. If its something that would be a big deal for LWs friends news outlet to report first, not being able to say anything to the reporters who could write about it even, hey, I hear this might happen, you should make some calls! This friend understood the gravity of the information I told her, and I 100% trusted her to not leak it. The enforcement has to be based on the idea that the leak was damaging. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. Or maybe one of those people isnt quite as trustworthy as the person who told them thought they were, and they tell the wrong person, or tell multiple people, or write an article about it because theyre also a journalist. (Also the NASA leaker didnt get fired. Was alphabet city watching his ass, no idea. +10. I think that is also part of the lesson that OP needs to learn. And then there are things you cannot even hint at under any circumstances. It can take down evil people who mean to do others harm. People leak or share things to journalists they know all the time, with agreements by those journalists on how to share it. I think people are reading defensiveness from the qualifiers probably and suppose. I can sympathize that this is still very raw for OP and perspective will only come with more time. Me too. She showed no contrition or reflection. [TN] Accidentally emailed very confidential information. What - Reddit I used to be a journalist, I have lots of friends who are journalists and I never tell them anything that I shouldnt, even the ones I really trust. Agree with this. If you had stayed they would have never trusted you again.. I will never not believe the publisher did that intentionally and threw him under the bus. Once you told your coworker, you dragged her out there on the plank with you. The financial firm I worked for had mandatory quarterly compliance meetings with examples of Dont Be This Guy Because He Doesnt Work Here Anymore. For example, a lot of insider trading is based on the TIMING of someone finding out information. Say I have a friend working on a presidential campaign, and she tells me theres a bunch of debate about the candidates strategy, I have to decide whether to mention that to my colleague who covers the candidate. THIS ^^^ Whether it is age or just immaturity, there is clearly a major blind spot about the big picture and the potential impact resulting from this behavior. But what you do when youre on the other side of the inbox? that should be a firing offense. Hopefully whatever she disclosed doesnt violate a public access law, since the information was released publicly shortly afterward, but wow did she dodge a bullet. The penalty for breach of confidentiality isn't restricted to employees who have . I get so exasperated with TV shows where a SO throws a tantrum about a cop/government worker not being able to tell them stuff, and turns it into a trust issue. Box-ticking SA&T wont change security behaviors. While it's not always easy to identify the cause for leakage of information, it's important to try to find the security vulnerabilities that make your information less secure. It goes through a game of telephone and the person at the end of the line gets mad that the first person would say such a thing. But what you were effectively asking your employer to do is trust a totally unknown (to them) journalist not to publish something that was apparently such exciting news that you, bound by confidentiality, simply couldnt keep quiet about it. The rules are severe because people need externals to keep them motivated. It sucks this happened, and Im sorry that this was the way it all went down. The best workplace I ever saw in this regard was a law firm that specializes in foreclosure (I am not a lawyer, but I worked there in another capacity). I thought it was over. ! but you just cant. Sometimes the news is a dreadful burden to bear (staff reductions of people you know, elimination of services you think are important) and sometimes the news is exciting, you have the inside scoop and cant wait to share it. Its also something that happens in a business relationship rather than a personal one, because the assumption is that personal relationships are entirely off the record. Dang! When I finally came clean about it an interview, the response from the hiring manager was thats ridiculous, I would never fire anyone for that.. If you own your mistake, meditate on it, learn from it, and learn to tell the story of how you learned from it, then you might be able to get another job in the communications industry working for a company that does not handle sensitive client data, or in another industry where there are no potential confidentiality issues with your job. Because a) LW broke confidentiality. Absolutely this. Don't use . You've learned from this mistake and had no malicious intent. Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. was. Compare someone in law enforcement happening to find out the (secret) address and phone number of their friend-groups favorite celebrity, or finding the contact information for the cutie in the convertible, after their roommate catches the license plate numberand sharing. I get why maintaining confidentiality is important, and I understand why the OP was wrong in this particular situation, but balance is also needed. Its not possible to catch every mistake or typo over the course of a whole career. 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 suspect youre referring to a case where a patient was put in danger, but where no obvious harm occurred like a psychiatrist consensually sleeping with their patient, which an unscrupulous psychiatrist might see as a victimless crime, but which is incredibly risky behavior. If you dont need to / want to share with the boss share with your closest family/friend, assuming they dont work at the same place or have friends/contacts there. I remember the line of people walked out the door for looking at OJ Simpsons records when he was arrested. Yeah, thats a good point. You really think a lawyer would publicly (extremely publicly) admit to doing something he hadnt done, for which he was sanctioned and fined by regulators, and permanently ruin his own reputation in the process? In fact, if I ever got a query from someone I knew, I was required to hand off the query to a colleague. It was a big enough thing that they gave you a 1st chance. But heres the thing you still have to have a ton of discretion about how you share and where. UK government has fired people for looking up records of contestants on reality TV series, multiple times. OP, Im sure in your excitement you truly didnt think there was anything wrong with telling your friend, someone you trust implicitly to remain discreet. You are disappointed you didnt get a second chance. Perhaps something like the announcement of the new Amazon HQ? Just a bad situation. The terminology is often not eligible for rehire., And every time Ive ever given a formal reference, that has been one of the questions: Would you hire her again? or Is she eligible for rehire?. However, at the time, I did feel guilty so I confided in an older coworker who I considered a mentor. Well, this is both unkind and off-base. Or it could be about a broader picture like if youd had performance issues or other problems that made it easier for them to decide to just part ways. Likewise, they would have fired you anyways regardless because they now feel that they cannot trust you with information. Thats the wrong lesson to learn. Nothing got out about this before it was supposed to. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. Lack of the maturity to keep exciting news to onesself. 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. If the policy says people who tell information to non authorized individuals must be fired they could have been fired for not firing you. Yeah, I thought it was from her personal cell too. Was this alone enough to be fired, or is there a history? A good . Are there any reasons why the coworker couldnt be upfront with what had to be done ? I just wasn't thinking at the moment I sent the information. It was spur of the moment and, as soon as I realized what Id done I circled back to her to clarify that that information was confidential. If nothing exculpatory came out in that meeting then maybe firing was the appropriate response. And there are reasons the rule is dont leak, rather than dont leak (except to people youre *really sure* wont tell any one else (except people who they are really sure they wont tell anyone else (except people theyre absolutely positive wont tell anyone else))). And if we do, well tell them not to tell anyone.. If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. read something out loud THEN realize that it wasnt public information. Regulation people have heard of is going to be changed/repealed and its a big deal Yeah, seconding this. I guarantee you that somewhere in the company handbook for the Government Agency where you worked there is a paragraph about the obligations of an employee who learns of a data breach. Thanks for sharing all of this. I agree. Like, firing on the spot if I access my own chart. I was then let go but will be extremely vigilant in the future to never let this happen again. Wouldn't employers just throw my application to the bin once I declare I have been dismissed for gross misconduct? I am not falling on the sword or putting my job on the line for a coworker. I imagine optimal framing varies by industry and so Im not sure what to advise there. Please keep reflecting on this. If she had been doing something perfectly acceptable, seen by someone who misunderstands the situation, and fired because of that, then she would be an innocent victim of a very unfair employer.
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