"You can call or text and say, 'Call me, you were sent the wrong information.' " She recalls one time when a co-worker accidentally sent an email calling a client a "tough cookie" to the. Dealing with an employee suspected of revealing confidential information In that case its not so relevant that there was a misunderstanding. Maybe the information was a big deal to the agency but not externally (say getting a big grant funded), but if it was something that was legitimately important news, her friend would have been at least a little torn between loyalty to her friend and loyalty to her job. This is how old I am. Ive worked in the banking industry for a couple decades and this would be a fireable offense on the first instance, no ifs, ands, or buts. Maybe OPs workplace does the same? You kind of glaze over this, OP, but if you spoke in this meeting as you did here then I wonder if thats the real reason for the firing. There ARE circumstances in which keep this confidential means you can tell very close, trusted people about it as they did in the letter. No one was allowed to approach her and her desk for the week and every night she locked up the removable ribbon from her typewriter because it could be unspooled and read. Doesnt matter if it was a friend. If the answer is Yes then say that. This incident was a huge violation of trust. On other occasions, you might accidentally receive a confidential email with information meant for one person (or a few people) you know. But the judge's response to the request for a. I dont know if shell do it again, but Im certainly not going to take the risk on someone who doesnt even seem to be sorry. 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. Her best chance of moving forward and looking as good as possible in an interview is to accept full responsibility and say that she made a mistake and learned from it. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. If OP had never confided in any coworker about what she had done, it would still not be blind-siding to be fired for it. Cmon, it was. Please banish the phrase ratted out from your vocabulary and thinking. Nothing got out about this before it was supposed to. Hes in an unrelated field, it doesnt affect him at all, and he wouldnt really care outside of knowing whats going on in Eddies life but hes a chatterbox and theres a decent chance hed forget and say something to someone. Thats also real life. Not because my coworker ratted me out, but because I came to her for guidance and instead of being straight with me, she made me think it would be OK only to be questioned hours later. While it is possible the line could be actively tapped/monitored by someone else, even if it was an unsecured line it would be reasonable to assume the home phone number on file for GSAs dad would lead to the dad. When telling me about the call, she said that when the checker said the guys name, she couldnt stop herself from bursting out, Wait, he told you to call me?!. Im so sorry and I will never do anything like that again.. If I ever texted a journalist about nonpublic information Id be fired. Something LW has not seemed to understand: the fact that you worked for a governmental agency is not the issue, the fact that you leaked info early is. Youll get another job. I tell the character and imagine their response, and the urge to share subsides. Lack of the maturity to keep exciting news to onesself. Thats a good friend but you put her in a bad position. From OPs comment, it seems like shes already taken responsibility for her actions and knows what she does wrong yet 95% of the comments are lecturing her about how dumb she is (not in those words, but thats undeniably the gist), which is completely unhelpful and honestly, incredibly sanctimonious and obnoxious. you get to a point where you just really really need to share. Like you said, it was a breach and thats serious on a professional level (your friend is a journalist, too! Bank Sends Sensitive E-mail to Wrong Gmail Address, Sues Google Have you learned from your mistake? Confidentiality, especially in government, is no joke and should be taken very seriously. Policy change that is a big deal to staff that works on it, but very in the weeds for the general public (regulation is going to be changed in a way that is technically important but at most a medium-sized deal), Fairly real examples that would be much bigger deals: This is a long way to go for a publicity stunt. 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. Dan is such a pain! The mistake was breaking company policy not that they announced to a coworker they broke company policy. But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. You cant let yourself act out of emotion. Theres a lot of admittedly not very exciting info the federal government is sitting on at any time. This was supposed to be a stand-alone comment. She had no idea whether the friend would blab or not. It helps you to catch context-driven mistakes such as adding the wrong recipient, attaching the wrong file, or forgetting to use Bcc instead of cc. Unless things have changed since I was in j-school (which is a possibility), off-the-record arrangements are basically the journalistic equivalent of a pinky swear. As much as I love some of my coworkers, Im not taking one of the team. Got my first job. Many employers monitor emails, and some employees . OP needs to learn the art of discernment. Life may not look better in 6 months but I bet it does in 3 years. Unfortunately accepting responsibility doesnt always work in some workplaces, it just digs your hole. And then that coworker did tell someone, and she was fired. She cut a guys LVAD wires so that hed be bumped up to the top of the heart transplant donor list? For many fed and state agencies, non-public records _must_ be released on a records request despite their non-public status unless they fit into a narrow set of explicit exemptions. You can avoid finding yourself in this position by double-checking the recipient email address (especially when autocomplete is involved), the cc field, and the Bcc field. Its going to be a hurdle. However, at the time, I did feel guilty so I confided in an older coworker who I considered a mentor. If you break certain unspoken rules, you can lose your job or ruin your career. How do I go about asking for a job on another team? My company is not going to jeopardize a $500M/yr contract over my mouth. For most cases in the US, I'd expect it to be legal. I dont know whether you meant it this way, but the co-worker is not untrustworthy for reporting this. Additionally, J. K. Rowling won a lawsuit against the lawyer and the firm. How to you ensure you're aware of it, and following it? Im in public relations/global communications. A terse to non-existent IT policy or one that's full of unexplained jargon can work against a company. This friend understood the gravity of the information I told her, and I 100% trusted her to not leak it. Even if you trust her 100%, she is still too high risk. Understandably, the agency had to let me go. Something to show that you didnt get caught you confessed. Its hard to imagine what at a government job could be SOOO Exciting! Well, you certainly can do that, but its one hell of a risk, and a continuation of poor ethics. Phishing emails are emails that appear to be from a legitimate source, but are actually from a malicious source. 2. If you werent human, you wouldnt make mistakes. If I happened to expose that to my BIL who runs the comic book store and has a bunch of media and arts and entertainment contacts? Honest Mistake: Have You Ever Shared Sensitive Data to the Wrong Person? Take this to heart in your next position and deal with sensitive information. AND I told somebody within the company about that? Youre heading in the right direction, and youve also gotten some really good advice. Whats not fine is trying to take somebody elses, or dramatically moping about it until someone gives me theirs. Can I be fired for sending a derogatory text about my boss to my - Avvo Excellent points, especially LWs use of ratted out. Alison has said so many times that theres no tattling in the work world. You violated your contract so your previous employer had little choice but to let you go - your new employer will understand this but if you show them you've accepted responsibility for it and will make sure never to do that again then I think you've got a good chance of getting another position. Email Mistakes at Work: How to Survive Them - CBS News Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to personal mailbox - how do I get another job? Of course, but if you think that there arent tons of people out there whove made huge mistakes and managed to keep it from getting out, youre kidding yourself. An in-person meeting might be more appropriate if you accidentally sent information about your plans to find another job to your manager. Thats the one that needs to learn to keep things to herself? All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. We asked them why they did it. Please keep reflecting on this. The hospital I was working for last year had the best of this kind of presentation that Ive ever seen. But would the government do that? Im now turning my head sideways and re-reading/rethinking. I made a similar dumb mistake in my first professional job by sharing something that wasnt sensitive but was nonetheless governed by a broad company-wide confidentiality policy a complaint email sent to our companys contact us address by a customer whose name and address I had omitted. Separately, when you share, you have to still be oblique enough to not get yourself in trouble. I want to encourage you to drill deeper on something you said in your letter: I did feel guilty. The US is a large jurisdiction, and generally have what I consider very little protection for private data. I agree with you that its ok for OP to feel resentful (at least in the short-run)! 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. I will never not believe the publisher did that intentionally and threw him under the bus. I constantly have journalist friends asking for confidential tips, and there is no way I would ever give up any information. LW, people in the comments are also ragging on you for being upset with your coworker but frankly, I would be mad too! It was a refreshingly candid answer and so we wound up hiring him. And it is so hard! The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. As I read it, LWs friend couldnt pass the information along at all. The employer has a policy against this and everyone working there has signed that they read the policy. This. Its a huge risk that if discovered by the employer would likely result in being blacklisted from the company and if the LW is employed there immediate termination. Depending on the circumstances, you can indeed get fired for sending what you assume to be a private email or text. Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. A non-disclosure agreement (often referred to as a confidentiality agreement), is a legally-binding contract which governs the sharing of information between people or organizations and sets limits on the use of the information. I agree. I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. She should have just sat with that feeling and let it fuel her resolve to never share confidential info with an outside party again. I was talking about this upthread before I saw this discussion. Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. I think it helps that you told your coworker. But it absolutely does not mitigate it AT ALL. I thoughtlessly mentioned an embargoed announcement to a longtime friend in journalism before it was public. Letter writer, it sounds like youre new to our field and may not understand the importance of keeping confidence. Heres what to do. +100 to this. Journalists seek out and report information thats their job. Ugh, yes. Thank you for following up with Alison and here in the comments, and Im sorry for what youre going through. But if I found out a coworker was sharing this information with just anyone it would be a probably HIPAA violation and, yes, I would need to tell my boss. Or when she builds a pattern of sharing harmless information until suddenly it isnt harmless? If that got into the wrong hands it could even result in the end of civilization. In sending that information to your own mailbox, you transmitted the data to a number of machines, any number of which could be intercepting the data for reading, and many do albeit for legit purposes of scanning for advertising relevant stuff or scanning viruses. The best case scenario is former company only verifies employment. Its not their call. Same here! I imagine optimal framing varies by industry and so Im not sure what to advise there. A true 100% owning of what you did. Many, many of us in similar positions have made similar mistakes. Yeah, I thought it was from her personal cell too. But it could be that GSAs dad had a code/password to verify it was actually him and the caller forgot to verify that first. If *you* got that carried away, you cant guarantee that she wont, either. That functions differently from confidential information in government sectors and sounds closer to your examples in your original comments, but it would still be a really bad idea to share that information. Specifics dont matter, but to me, being able to explain you told your friend your employer was about to buy this farm to build a park so they bought the farm so they could raise the price and make a profit would make a huge difference in terms of making the OP aware of the consequences of their actions. The phone rang in the middle of the night and my mother picked it up, before she could hand the phone to my father, the person on the other end of the phone explained everything that was going on and why he was calling. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? I agree. The consequences are serious and could have legal implications if youre representing a government or publicly traded company. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. It was super not personal, it was just a situation were second chances were not given, period. The secretary is going to be featured at [cool upcoming event]! how do you handle being pregnant at work? You believe your friend is trustworthy but, wow, the optics of sharing with a friend who is a journalist are really bad, and . Sometimes were lucky and there arent any repercussions. If someone stole money from their workplace, or illegally harassed a coworker, and their colleague reported it would that person be a rat too? Confidentiality is not just an issue in communications. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. You are allowed to feel your feels about things, so long as you understand the reality. Yes, some employer will bin you, others might give you a second chance. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. You can get past this, if you learn from the experience. 4. We cannot do our job with our leaders if they cannot trust us. She just needs to learn discretion. Age is hardly an indicator of a persons ability to consistently make the best choices at all times. And definitely let go any butthurt about your coworker they did nothing wrong and followed clear policies on reporting this incident. Where the investigation uncovers evidence of divulging confidential information, then the employer should take formal action. 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. I was coming to the comments section to say the same thing. Having said that, as a hiring manager, if you were able to talk to me about how this one-time error in judgment caused a deep shift in thinking and was a critical pivot point in your professional development I would hear you out. Once you do it, the consequences are the consequences. It doesnt matter if your friend is a journalist or not; thats a total red herring. Noooooo. Cut to a couple hours later, and Im called into my bosss office because she has heard that I leaked this information to a SLACK CHANNEL FULL OF JOURNALISTS. Dont get me wrong, she shouldnt have ever told the friend and Id understand if they were worried if she told more people, but its concerning how they immediately jumped to an even worse conclusion based on nothing but their own assumptions. Those kinds of disclosures often rise to the level of immediate termination, which is what happened, here. Period. The HIPAA Rules require all accidental HIPAA violations, security incidents, and breaches of unsecured PHI to be reported to the covered entity within 60 days of discovery - although the covered entity should be notified as soon as possible and notification should not be unnecessarily delayed. If its a marketing message, spam, or something that looks entirely unimportant simply delete and move on. Was alphabet city watching his ass, no idea. 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. Show prospective employers that you can reflect on your actions and learn from mistakes, because thats not at all what Im seeing here. Any message that starts with Oh honey is going to read as rude and condescending unless its followed by a sincere Im so sorry in response to something terrible happening. 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. Yeah, thats a good point. There are many ways to say thing like this without lying. Its your actions that are right, wrong, or in that confusing gray area, and what you feel doesnt have to dictate what you do. Those questioners would hammer her on this. that should be a firing offense. Reduce human activated risk to protect against email data breaches, Allow your teams to communicate securely and share sensitive data, Guiding principles that govern how we operate as a team, Diverse and inspiring individuals passionate about making a difference in the world, Join our team across a range of roles and help shape the cyber security market, Tailored compensation and career paths designed to attract and retain world-class talent, Unique and personalized benefits to help maximize your potential with us. The misrepresentation of what happened is my concern. Can you get fired for sending a meme? - triple j - ABC People are going think, If OP can minimize all the responsibility for this incident, she is going to be able to rationalize it away some other time in the future. Received confidential email not for you? | Email DLP | Egress Does that matter? Had OP not made the initial mistake and then compounded it by telling the coworker, shed still be employed. No checking out salary information permitted! Be careful. was my company right to fire my coworker for accidentally sending me a journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. Best wishes to OP in her work on this. You are disappointed you didnt get a second chance. There could be a situation where it might be the journalists job to share the information LW thought they were telling to just a friend. The emotion is neutral; its what you do with it that counts. We all make stupid mistakes. OP: Feelings are frequently conflated with facts in our minds and it can take some work to separate them. I remind people about once a year that not only can I not look up their medical info on my own, I cant look it up even if they ask me to, and I get in even more trouble if I look up my own medical info. We call this a misdirected email and it's really, really easy to do. See Rule 1.2 (d). True story: in my last job someone mistyped an email address by a single letter and instead of going to a related government org it went to a journalist. I hope you get past this, it may bar you from future government work, but not other placed hopefully if you follow Alisons advice and really own up to the mistake. If not, an investigation would be started on which employees were poking around in Famous Persons account and why. If you got the launch codes for the missiles, thats a big no no to share. I agree that you can learn how to share without breaching confidentiality. If youre found to be lying, thats an instant rejection in a way that a well-explained firing would not be. 5 Ways Your Emails Could Breach GDPR - TowerWatch Tech Replying to the sender is a good thing to do for a couple of reasons. I understand that you get that what you did was a very big deal as a single event, but I think you might need to spend some more time examining for yourself why you would describe this as a victimless crime. The fact that your friend didnt as far as you know tell anyone else about your bombshell doesnt meant that nothing happened. Sharing HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL info. 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. That was not an enjoyable situation at all. What OP did was incredibly serious and, as happened, a fireable offense. She shared *exciting* embargoed information. But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. So. I DEFinitely sometimes shared those tidbits with friends and family who were big tiger/hippo/etc fans. Your first step should be to contact your old HR department and ask about their policies for reference checks. Things Never to Send Over Work Email - Business Insider People tend to share with trusted confidants/partners/etc. Calling this victimless shows OP still doesnt have insight into their behavior. I wouldnt lead with it, but I wouldnt hide it either if it ever comes up, and folks will likely ask about why youve left past jobs. You broke a rule and you have to take responsibility. Copyright 2007 - 2023 Ask A Manager. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. Some projects you could talk about with a trusted friend as long as you didnt get specific, but shouldnt announce on twitter. Sometimes I need to talk about what Ive heard or am excited about something I did which made a significant improvement to someones life, but I have to talk about that in a way that doesnt risk identifying the person at all. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. When I read the letter, it struck me that the VERY EXCITING nature of the news was more of a reason NOT to share it. It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead, but its also nave to assume they wouldnt let anything slip to the exact wrong person. Leaking information can actually be the right thing in some cases. Is there a single-word adjective for "having exceptionally strong moral principles"? There was no warning, no suspension, nothing. It could be that the info you leaked was especially confidential, or that theyve been concerned about other leaks and are taking a hard-line stance. But if I did, itd basically just be gossip (I hear Senator Ys staff is really frustrated) that they could choose to report out in detail or not, and definitely wouldnt be traced back to me. In "Labs," scroll down to "Undo Send" and enable it. As in I am so, so sorry! So you let the cat out of the bag about the cat your zoo bagged? Then, when someone particularly notable would enter our database, we would get a reminder email not naming names but reminding us that no matter how interesting the information is, its private and not ok to share. The enforcement has to be based on the idea that the leak was damaging. And if it is a part of that, the coworker was obligated to report it! The rules are severe because people need externals to keep them motivated. Its unfortunate that LW lost her job over it but the coworker isnt to blame for LWs decision to disclose information they werent supposed to.

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