It was a refreshingly candid answer and so we wound up hiring him. Many types of information are protected only during specific time frames insider trading comes to mind as a particularly nasty one disclosing inside information about a pending large contract award or trade is absolutely firable. I agree that its ok to be upset with people, even if its irrational or illogical, as long as we ultimately let it go and refrain from mistreating someone because of our illogical emotional response. 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. I agree that the companys response was wrong the sexual harasser should have been fired but in the US, authority doesnt care. The company I work for uses keyloggers and text scanners on our computers to catch these kinds of issues. Even if you feel that way, definitely dont say that! Not saying you did this! We see people destroy themselves with guilt, and so we try to tell people theres no need to feel guilty or ashamed. +1000. While they may not state why someone was fired, Ive found it pretty common to state that someone was fired (or laid off etc) and if the person is eligible for rehire. It would have been a ticking timebomb for them, and the next time it could have leaked beyond the friend. What Are the Ways to Respond to an Unintentional HIPAA Violation? Got my first job. Identify the cause of the information leak. As others have noted, it probably isnt anything especially exciting. Where I work, I cannot legally share information about very exciting things that are happening/about to happen. But at the end of the day, Alison is right. ), You also werent fired for technically breaking a rule. You were fired for actually breaking a rule, and a serious one. Examples that most journalists would find pretty snoozy (although journalists who cover the agency super-closely for trade publications, Politico Pro, Bloomberg Gov, etc, would still be interested): Especially in banking! The same goes for ratting out. From the other persons perspective, its always easier to say Oh, dont worry, its not that bad than to get a half-hearted minimizing apology for something youre really stinging from. Thats when it gets tricky. I think its very strange that so many commenters are trying to police the LWs feelings about the coworker. Understandably, the agency had to let me go. Something to show that you didnt get caught you confessed. As a damage control, should I (as the manager responsible) send a message to all employees explaining what occurred and asking them to respect the confidentiality of the information and not open nor forward the information to anyone else or should I just not bring additional attention to this message? Itd be much safer for the LW to ask HR what theyre going to say to other employers asking for references. But at that very moment, I was in a personal email back-and-forth with another female coworker. LW told a human known to be a journalist about The Thing. And they also need to have an acute understanding that the timing of disclosure makes a HUGE, TREMENDOUS difference. I cant say any details yet, but needed to share my excitement!!. If it was the 2nd option then, yeah, they were going to let you go. In an ideal world, it doesnt happen at all. 4) The coworker was absolutely right to report the breach in confidentiality. I agree with Alisons response. 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.. 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. Sometimes people screw up and they still really need their jobs. Theres a difference between wishing you had a second chance (acknowledges they arent entitled to one) and being upset you didnt have one (expected that there would be one). Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! one last post-script: this person wasnt super good at their job, but was a teammate i worked closely with, and doubt they had been put on a PIP prior to this. Im a journalist and Id concur and depending on how sensitive/important the information was, and what a big deal it was when it did break, you might have put your friend in a tough spot at her job by giving her a news tip she couldnt pursue or share with her colleagues. Later when I moved on, it became my absolute best interview topic when asked about a mistake and how I handled it. 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. OP can come up with steps to fix the real problem in their future jobs, but they cant really fix an evil coworker. How does this make it any better or worse..? Resist the temptation to gossip about fellow employees and don't express your disdain for your. Perhaps the email was intended for a client in which case the clients data is at risk and the sender has inadvertently committed a data leak. Later the coworker left the company and at company B was asked to write a similar report for the new company. The point of the story is the funny way people behave. Work It Out: If I Share Private Information Accidentally About My Including their reputation being damaged. 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. Oh, dear. Absolutely this. Heres another the state Supreme Court will probably make a decision on voting district gerrymandering soon., (This one happened to me, and was probably the most exciting confidential information I got access to my desk was close enough to the GIS employees that I could see the increased traffic out of their area and infer that Something was Happening. My employer lost a lawsuit where they had been sued for violating open records and meetings laws. Regardless of what word you use when you disclose what happened, understanding that difference, owning up to it, and showing how you've changed as a result is your best hope of gaining future employment. This is a great point LW. Thats why they told you the information was confidential. Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. So, the implication is actually the opposite of giving your feelings 100% credence its saying, separate how you feel from what you do. But I think in order to talk about this with future employers, youve got to take more responsibility for it. And the young comment. Plus you might be doing them a massive favour when it comes to catching a data breach early. 3. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. Reporting misconduct is the right thing to do, and thats how an interviewer is going to see it. You will find another employer who will trust you and will give you that chance to shine for them. Well, this is both unkind and off-base. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. And youre being very generous toward the coworker in saying she misunderstood and mistakenly misrepresented it. Check out this article on that HERE. The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. Ive been in the position of having the relevant information, and even if its hard, you just cant tell your journalist friends unless youre okay with them using it: its what they do, and its not fair to ask them not to. My worry, OP, is that you dont see this as sufficiently serious to warrant a firing but I promise you that in most communications positions, it really likely would be. Accidents or mistakes are bound to happen. (For example, my BFF works at the Pentagon. Even there, be very sure the person youre talking to has the same access you do. Period. More employers are still going to be turned off by that than impressed. I work in the auto industry in media communications. It might not be that the coworker reported you. 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). I am very, very lucky. But thats not what happened here. You might have to take a step back in your career to come back from it but you can you bounce back. "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information Every employer Ive worked for (finance) has done annual or semi-annual privacy/information security trainings, and while theyre tiresome for some of us, theyre certainly helpful in continually reinforcing hey, this is a very very very very very big mcf**king deal. they dont owe it to you to offer that opportunity, That reminds me of the guys who say, I know I cheated on you, but I want a second chance.. Know your workplace rights: New laws protect employees during - NBC12 Some projects you could talk about with a trusted friend as long as you didnt get specific, but shouldnt announce on twitter. This will suck for a long time writing this post has made me feel anxious thinking about my own lapses and consequences from years ago but it all works out in the end. 2. 100%? Like you said, it was a breach and thats serious on a professional level (your friend is a journalist, too! If you live in a place where its illegal to shoot guns into the air, and you shoot a gun into the air and the bullet does not actually kill anyone in its fall, you have still broken the law and placed others in danger. And while you felt mad at coworker, really youre mad at yourself. And in the future if you really cant hold something in (that is not full on illegal to discuss) and want to share it with your spouse or something, dear God dont ever do it in writing! We got walked through several juicy gossip or personal information scenarios during our orientation in an interactive way, so we could experience the kind of decision-making they wanted, and it was much more memorable. OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. I wanted to say, it sucks you lost your job after this one time indiscretion, but Im glad you understand the seriousness of it and with Alisons script, I hope youll find a new job soon. Im confused about the fact-finding meeting. There were maybe 50 of us on the team for the app. Does that matter? As soon as someone has decided you're not a team player, or are a problem employee, then even tiny things get seen as evidence that you should be fired. It was a couple of telling E-mails that helped bring down Bear Stearns with the subprime loan mess crashing . My philosophy is that it doesnt matter what city you live in, its a small town. Im sure the letter writer has plenty of that to deal with already. . I will add that I consider neither my cats nor Jesus to be imaginary; the connection was someone you wouldnt get in trouble for sharing with. They can only control what their employees do, and thats why they have those rules, and not much leeway for people who dont adhere to them. I accidently sent an attachment that contained confidential Once you told your coworker, you dragged her out there on the plank with you. 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. 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. And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. We all make stupid mistakes. They might try to use silence to get you to say more. One day its pre-public FOUO information; what next? I can't remember the details, but there was a point about the fact the word "confidential" added in every e-mail by such a notice wasn't actually helpful, since tools that looked for the word confidential were flagging everything up, including a large number of false positives. Here are the things that OP needs to remember: First, the coworker is not a rat, even if she misunderstood the scope of OPs unauthorized disclosure and mistakenly misrepresented it. Unless this job was the bulk of your experience, I would leave it off your resume. This was a person whose reviews had been glowing up until that moment and I am sure they are still upset that this came out of the blue. If you had the same role in a public company, you could have have been fired because of regulations preventing insider trading. All this said, I think Alisons approach is the best one when youre applying for jobs. An in-person meeting might be more appropriate if you accidentally sent information about your plans to find another job to your manager. e.g. Fwiw the journalist agreed to destroy the info. I just wasn't thinking at the moment I sent the information. This was all public information, but the original report was work product of Company A even if it had originally been created by the coworker. (They could be facing prison time.). We asked them why they did it. Good luck! Besides the stuff that has already been discussed upthread like potential for insider trading, unfair advantage in things like competing for federal contracts or grants, or derailing a communications strategy, one of the biggest reasons to keep work information private is due to counterintelligence concerns. Also, if your mentor went through the trouble of having a conversation with you about your duties and seemed concerned, I doubt she was out to get you she probably felt it was her duty and to her best interest to report now that you have made her an accomplice-after-the-fact in any potential breach (say, your friend was the one out to get you and it leaked before your department had any plans for dealing with a leak, this mentor would also be in trouble for not reporting it as soon as she knew if they found out she did), OP I want to comment on one aspect that I didnt see anyone mentioning directly. I had not thought about this issue via this lens, but I think youre 100% right. They have absolutely no obligation to keep secrets for government agencies or private companies. And I did use Slack on my work computer, and I did interact professionally with some journalists who covered my area over Slack. They looked at themselves as an organization and realized that the damage was irrevocable. 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.. The issue of whether HIPAA information can be emailed is complicated. Thats totally true, and when I worked for state government release of confidential information would have been grounds for immediate termination, but Alison is the only one who calls it confidential, OP calls it non-public. You can bet Id be gone with no second chance despite my almost-20-years and ton of good work. Just *looking* at the account would get you noticed and your hand slapped (if you were lucky). However, if the message appears urgent to somebodys life or career, its likely youll want to consider stepping in. There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. You've learned from this mistake and had no malicious intent. Even if healthcare providers and business associates are compliant to HIPAA Standards, there is always a possibility of unintentional or accidental disclosure of Protected Health Information (PHI). Share information about a company merging before its publicly announced? How you analyze the situation and internalize the lesson is more important than wording for future employers right now. Having a mentor at a different organization in a similar role might be a good idea for the future. He was employed elsewhere within a few weeks. Assuming this is in the US, and were talking about FOIA laws, typically a records request will come through a particular channel (not likely to be some random employee in communications.). A majority of those who work from home would use their own personal digital devices such as laptop, tablet or mobile to perform their daily work tasks and it is also convenient for employees to. The communications person from the Marine Band was immediately fired when it was discovered she had leaked this information. Click the "Settings" icon (the wheel/cog) and click "See all settings". 5 Steps to Take After a Leakage of Confidential Information I supervise a manager who falsified an employee write-up but I dont think she should be fired. Which is so far beyond the truth Im honestly wondering if this coworker had it out for me the whole time. But thats where having friends in the same workplace comes inyou can expend the impulse by gushing to them and then zip your lips once you leave the building. Yes, or that appalling line by E M Forster, written just before the Second World War: if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. My only other advice is to consider if there were any conversations on slack that were inappropriate. I mean, mayyyyyybe but the OP put the coworker in a really uncomfortable position here, and while Im sure she didnt mean to, thats what she did. What is the point of Thrower's Bandolier? Confidential email sent to wrong address? | Email DLP | Egress Im not sure whether this is something they can move on from or not, but they absolutely need to get themselves out of the mindset that their coworker ratted on them, because thinking that reporting things like that is tattling and childish is how corruption grows. Im literally barred by policy from opening up my own files unless theres a work related reason I could lay out to do so. Its going to bite someoneand this time the person it bit was herself, which gives her a good opportunity to work on discipline and discretion. The violation was only victimless by accident and confidentiality rules dont hinge on whether or not the leak is known to have caused damage. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? When theres something I really want to share with my wife, I mask it, pretty much what we do here talking about how the client invested in llama shearings, or called up asking about rumours of purple llamas, or asked us to sell all their teapots that kind of thing. A fine of up to $100,000 and five years in jail is possible for violations involving false pretenses, and a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in jail is possible when HIPAA Rules have been violated for malicious reasons or for personal gain. That doesnt seem to be you, which is a great sign. It might just be that the scanners caught it and notified security. Im interested in the fact that the journalist friend is described as 100% trustworthy. It would have been nice- but Im sure the coworker was also pooping masonry. If you shared something with me that I didnt ask you about or probe for, and just knowing it could jeopardize my reputation or career you bet your ass Id share it with our manager. Like X candidate is running for president!. Its a bigger deal because that friend is a journalist. Was alphabet city watching his ass, no idea. Appropriately so, but still, wow. What if another journalist saw the email over your friends shoulder? Wouldnt you ask why the govt didnt fire them the first time? I also wanted to address a couple things that jumped out at me in this part: Also, am I even allowed to bring up the fact that someone ratted me out? Damn, thats hard core. Im not cleared for it. Extremely good advice! 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. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. I think thats a ridiculous overreach but whatever). OP erred, which she knows, but I dont think that means her mentor no longer has the obligation to be honest with her. Not necessarily for the leaking but for the way youre talking about it. And there was no social media then, so 100+++ times that now. If something like this would help, maybe try it. reading. Whats not fine is trying to take somebody elses, or dramatically moping about it until someone gives me theirs. But I now realize that I had no business sharing my bad behavior with colleagues it put them into a completely untenable position. 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. There is no other guarantee, and yet people count on it. So this. . Or if youd like to start a trial, get in touch and well be more than happy to arrange a free demo with your IT team. Sorry, Im tired and I think that metaphor got away from me. We had a discussion on a work committee about not using our work emails when discussing some sensitive information. If you need to share with the boss do so. Being honest going forward really will help OP to repair the damage to her reputation and show she has integrity. I dont work for the government but I do work with what are technically health records, although theyre not full patient charts or anything. If you told, you breached confidentiality, no matter what the other people did. Im thinking of the Elizabeth who went on a 20-email rage about being called Liz, or even the old 1970s memos from the Tiger Oil CEO that found new viral life in the digital age. Youll also want to double-check any attachments. Good luck! While I agree that this needs to be explained in the right way. I agree. Everyone in the workplace has an equal obligation and responsibility to ensure that rules are upheld because thats what keeps the company operating smoothly and in business and able to provide jobs to you all. nsx advanced load balancer documentation; . President issuing an executive order on (issue the agency deals with) 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. That really set the tone for the reference she gave. The fact that her co-worker actually followed the rules of her employer does NOT make her a rat. Ive been under NDA for things I cant even disclose to my boss, much less a friend outside the organization. Also, she wasnt a journalist I ever interacted with professionally shes a friend Ive had for years. I agree with you that its ok for OP to feel resentful (at least in the short-run)! Same-sex marriage is going to be legalized tomorrow!. She screwed up, and they fired her because thats what she deserved. 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. So no matter what, she cant be the person that you reach out to in any kind of way to share that kind of information. I think thats misunderstanding the severity of why what OP did was not ok. Theres any number of non-confidential matters that are embargoed prior to their public announcement. 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. If *you* got that carried away, you cant guarantee that she wont, either. As someone who works in PR/comms, my recommendation is to tell future employers the truth and emphasize what youve learned: They might push the company to reverse your termination. Yes, the ratted me out thing is probably not a fair assessment of what actually happened here. Had OP not made the initial mistake and then compounded it by telling the coworker, shed still be employed. Rather than leading you on and allowing you to continue to work for them under a cloud of mistrust (and all the downsides that come with that), they made a clean break and released you to get a fresh start elsewhere. And if I tell anyone, including a coworker ,that I processed said claim, my butt could very well get in a lot of trouble. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. Unfortunately, there are instances where employees have accidentally leaked confidential information. That brings us to your questions. Also, the OP wont be able to ever claim the good work experience she gained from the role. 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))). I tell the character and imagine their response, and the urge to share subsides. ); Im also thinking of someone I know whose work depends on his being able to drive who got a DUI last year, and someone who essentially had a full emotional breakdown in a workplace I was in when I was a lot younger, who ended up under her desk sobbing and throwing things). Yes, I did filing in a small-town law office where almost every name was familiar and nothing I read or saw left the office. There was no warning, no suspension, nothing. Quite recently, a client of my firm contacted us to say they had heard staff in a bar gossiping about another client. 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. Thats the wrong lesson to learn. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. To be fair Jules, I was making the assumption that it had been, in effect, sexual assault, which may not have been the case.
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