can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information
PRSA is an excellent suggestion! Doesnt matter that its your friend or that you trust her, its still a huge liability. If you cant maintain confidentiality, you can work elsewhere. Also, its not clear from your response Do you understand how serious what you did was? A first offense is still a breach in trust. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. They care a little more in the last 2 years, but not much. whatever you think is appropriate] to make sure it doesnt happen again.. People do stupid or extreme things all the time; their lives dont end, but they *can* be turning points for a downward spiral. I dont believe this falls under inadvertent, though OP deliberately gave that information to her friend. Im sorry, but I think you were fired with pretty good cause and it would be important to own that or you wont be able to spin the story for future employers. 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. You arent entitled to a second chance to screw this up. Our actions and our thoughts can definitely be wrong, but calling someones feelingswhich they have little to no control overwrong (or, dead wrong with double asterisks), only contributes to shame and self-loathing. In other words, this whole line of discussion is moot. So while the OP can feel what the OP feels, the sooner she can get rid of any hostile feelings about the coworker, the better it will be for the OP. You know that saying Its not the crime that gets you, but the cover-up? 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. This incident was a huge violation of trust. 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! That was not an enjoyable situation at all. If there was no record, then there is no possible sanction under FOIA or sunshine law (because that only pertains to records). But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. She got paid to pose as Roeders* mistress, once. 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 was fired for technically breaking a rule but it was my first offense, and nothing bad actually happened, and Im definitely learned my lesson. They sound far more serious than what happened. Once its out, you have no control over it. As the other commenter noted, this could have been a very serious offence considering you were working for the government. OP: Resist the temptation to gossip about fellow employees and don't express your disdain for your. The first job will be the hardest but gradually you are less and less likely to be asked about an older job. The rules are severe because people need externals to keep them motivated. 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. that should be a firing offense. 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. Yes. Im curious about how to turn the page, and I think your advice is really good about this own it, let go of the defensiveness, be ready to talk about changes youve made so it wont happen again. 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. Im sorry but it would definitely be a good idea to recognise that this is a really big deal and learn from it. Also, legally email addresses themselves dont typically count as 'personal information' as they are contact addresses and are treated in similar ways to phone numbers legally, as opposed to, say, identifying information like full name, DOB and home address all in one document. 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. I might consider you as a candidate who truly gets it in a way that someone who hasnt been tried by fire might not. Theres beating themselves up, but then theres also understanding and feeling properly appalled that they did something really unconscionable. This reminds me of the story of the Apple employee who left a prototype iPhone in a bar by mistake, before the official release. A selfie was reportedly taken that accidentally also showed the dispatch screen. You may ask them to delete the email before they read it. Yet, the subordinates were not pleased! The person you wronged is not obligated to give you that second chance with them. Discretion and brand protection are as critical to this role as promotion and talking to the media. This is a much more fulsome explanation of what I meant! Someone would then check into it to see if there was a valid reason for someone to be poking at it. (Even if its not an area she covers, she likely knows the person who does, and journalists share tips/info all the time.). And maybe they can, and maybe that chain will end with someone who doesnt forward the info on, or peter out once the information does become public in this case. Like, how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) I feel like this misses the overall lesson Allison is trying to impart here. Accidents do happen, we are all human but what rights you have if you share private company information by mistake really depends on a few things: the type of information that was accidentally distributed, how this impacted your company, and what the consequences were for you. We got [Celebrity Y] to promote a big public health initiative! Yes! Just because a story wasnt published about it doesnt mean it wasnt discussed internally among coworkers. I have absolutely no clue in your situation, but there are times when it really can be appropriate to let someone go without any second chances. That really set the tone for the reference she gave. I work in patents, and regularly see information that can definitely not be made public and has to be sent back and forth with extra security measures, but would also be tremendously boring to everyone but the IP team for a few specific rival companies in a very tiny field. Let me tell you what happened to the people who were not on the care team and accessed a newsworthy medical case. 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. Yes of course it feels bad that you were fired. I was wondering the same thing. My guess is that the LW was fired for a first offense because they refused to take responsibility for their breach. [important person 1] and [important person 2] are coming to my office for a press conference. how do I get out of an active-shooter drill at my office? [Well-known bad person] is going to be fined/punished/arrested. And then there are things you cannot even hint at under any circumstances. You believe your friend is trustworthy but, wow, the optics of sharing with a friend who is a journalist are really bad, and . Click the "Settings" icon (the wheel/cog) and click "See all settings". Its no more blind-siding because the coworker reported the issue, than it would be if, say, IT had reported it after monitoring OPs traffic. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? All journalists are human and many of us have spouses/friends who do things that are news, and this is a situation where good boundaries can protect everyone. But according to the LW, the trusted friend would not have blabbed, so if the LW didnt tell the coworker, the company would have never known and everything would be hunky dory. If you had stayed, they would never have trusted you again. It's a good idea to own it and let your management know. Everyone absolutely everyone employed at a hospital has to undergo annual HIPAA compliance training. A lot of times, the actual employee might not be important, but they might know something like when a key senior person works, or gossip about so-and-so, that is then used to either help with hacking, help with fraud, do additional social engineering where they know just enough about a topic to lead the conversation, or in some cases to put pressure on a higher-level person to try to get them to give further information or make certain decisions. We can't tell you the best way to answer, since the best way to answer is honestly and you're the only one who can give your honest answer. How do I tell potential future employers why I got fired and have them still want to hire me? But we have embargoes for a reason. 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. But also to say that when you work with confidential info, the impulse to share is a common one, and managing it is something you need to be on top of from every angle. Because they turned out to not be trustworthy. You're fired for violation but convince the Dept of Labor that no one without an IT degree could ever understand your policy. The person whos emailed may have inadvertently caused a data breach, so it could be important you get in touch and let them know. My company is not going to jeopardize a $500M/yr contract over my mouth. 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. Man I am swamped with the publicly known project I am barely treading water. and that person did what they were told to do and reported it. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. Some are minor, some are devastating. I think that is also part of the lesson that OP needs to learn. Take ownership and accountability of it, because for better or worse, all of us could have made OPs mistake at some point in our careers. This is incredibly condescending. So. As others mentioned, the breach is possibly a fire on first offense potential, but since they fired you after investigating slack that makes me wonder if you had too casual and friendly of chats with the journalists whose job it was for you to talk with. I thoughtlessly mentioned an embargoed announcement to a longtime friend in journalism before it was public. 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. She shared it via text not voice, but text, which could be seen by someone else. ^^. +10. Employees can't just post anything they want on Facebook or anywhere else. (For your job search, this might be obvious, but steer clear of medical, legal, PR, or any other field that deals with privacy.). One piece of information I learned (that has since been announced publicly, but hadnt been at the time) was SO EXCITING that in a weak moment, I texted one friend about it in celebration. It was a big enough thing that they gave you a 1st chance. I dont know the OPs financial status but if she needed the $$$ its not that easy to look at it as a kindness in the moment. But this was a self-inflicted wound, and you shouldnt frame it otherwise. Trying to understand how to get this basic Fourier Series, Linear regulator thermal information missing in datasheet. If you lie during the interview and the truth later comes out, thats enough to get you fired. That brings us to your questions. If you cant keep a secret, this is not a field you should be in. Employees also. Shes assuming the friend has more self-control than she does, which is precarious at best. It would have been better if she had told you first that she was going to tell someone, but whether she warns you first has no bearing on whether she was obligated to disclose. I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. We cannot do our job with our leaders if they cannot trust us. Thats just not something you can let yourself do. OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. There is zero entitlement in saying that shes upset she didnt get a second chance. Nothing dangerous, and while I was there it honestly wasnt even anything that would be a big scoop or exciting dinner party story. 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. Period. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. OP can come up with steps to fix the real problem in their future jobs, but they cant really fix an evil coworker. Yeah, we dont want to go down the road if encouraging the OP to continue acting unethically that will ensure she stays unemployed. OP, take a deep breath. Letter writer: If youre still dealing with this emotionally, focus on the facts. The information was work i was working on at the moment and I emailed it as I needed to do work on my personal laptop ; I couldn't take my work station away whilst on extended leave overseas. Was alphabet city watching his ass, no idea. I know this is pedantic, but as someone raised by a mother with BPD, I feel like its important to say that no ones feelings are wrong. I wont get into too many details, but where I work had a plan that was controversial and there was both opposition to it, internal and external. Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. Even innocuous-sounding information, like the name of a database, can be a huge security risk. The Smurfs have a secret colony in the woods of Maine!. 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. And not even trusting her not to publish it, but what if SHE got so excited by the news, just as LW did, that she just had to tell someone, and she picked someone that she trusted implicitly, and told them in strict confidence. The z department is not allocating the staff they promised. And especially in the field youre in, leaks are a big deal, and ESPECIALLY leaks to a member of the press. Agreed. Its good to hear from you! I fully expect that whenever they find the source of the leak the people involved will face some pretty serious consequences up to and including dismissal and possible criminal proceedings. It pretty much doesnt matter what field you are in the higher up you go the more likely you are to be privy to information that you MUST NOT share no matter how excited you may be. So yeah, confidential stuff is confidential for a reason. It happens. Leaking private information in a huge breach, especially if that leak is to a journalist. You did a thing that caused this outcome. ); 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). +1 on the choice of language and framing. Recurring theme here is that tattling isnt a thing at work. That doesnt mean youre a horrible person who should never work again! I wish I lived in your country. It doesnt, but we still shouldnt state assumptions like facts if theyre not supported by whats said in the letter and theres nothing wrong with Michaela pointing it out. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. Government tends to operate differently. This is an actual security headache/nightmare for my government department as its so common for people to go out to lunch and start discussing what theyre working on while eating. With all the Data Protection rules, the E-privacy Regs, yes - and sorry, GDPR, my friend was in panic mode as they still didn't really understand their situation. I want to encourage you to drill deeper on something you said in your letter: I did feel guilty. So the judgment on trustworthiness is flawed. And you did it over company lines. In an ideal world, it doesnt happen at all. Thats the person were gonna call the blabbermouth in this situation? Don't be me, is what I'm saying I guess! But leadership has to know that if they share confidential material with us that it will stay confidential. It was bad. A misdirected email describes an instance where an email is sent to the wrong person or the wrong attachment has been added to an email that has the correct recipients in it. Thats pretty ratty behavior. My 2cents, LW if something was so exciting you couldnt keep it in, you were in the wrong field. Perhaps the way you feel (felt?) If you embezzle from the company and tell a coworker who then reports it, the mistake is embezzlement, not telling a coworker about it. Theres a lot of admittedly not very exciting info the federal government is sitting on at any time. Its very possible that LW could think what happened to me wasnt totally fair and still accept full responsibility for it during interviews (which is obviously the smart thing to do). 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. how trustworthy somebody actually is is never certain. Thats the real clincher here for me) and on a personal level with management your position is one of trust and you violated the basis of your work. We asked them why they did it. Accidents or mistakes are bound to happen. Is there a solution to add special characters from software and how to do it. In the worst cases though, businesses can lose clients and employees can lose jobs. 4. Let me be clear she did not leak it. when we had a high school shooting, a student I knew (10 y old) and who got into it (gladly uninjured) got a visit from his own uncle who was a journalist that very evening, who came to visit the parents and then proceeded to try to get his nephew to talk about the details. Thats not really a response to the OP but more a pushback on some the comments. While I agree that this needs to be explained in the right way. ), You also werent fired for technically breaking a rule. You were fired for actually breaking a rule, and a serious one. I do not believe in using it for personal gain, even the minor personal gain of sharing juicy secrets with someone. All of that being said, I wish her the best in moving forward and finding another job shell bounce back and be the wiser for it. How does this make it any better or worse..? Your first step should be to contact your old HR department and ask about their policies for reference checks. Yes, but lets face it, theres no way its as exciting as what any of us are imagining it to be. The LW blabbed, why would her friend have more self-control? Even if the coworker had malicious intentions, they were following privacy laws and regulations. Some offenses are serious enough that a single incident is enough to fire someone. Ramp up your privacy settings across all accounts. update: how can I turn down training requests from my clients? That mindset is just so messed up. I would absolutely be fired for checking out things for curiosity, I only have access in the first place so I can see whether people are currently clocked in (if you change their access to something while they are actively using it, odd things happen, so I need to check to see if they clocked in that day before I begin). 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. And being mad at them is an effort to dodge responsibility and ownership of the actions that WERE at fault. I dont work for the government but I do work with what are technically health records, although theyre not full patient charts or anything. 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. I dont even share work release information (good or bad) early with my spouse. Thats another instant firing, even if the information isnt ever misused. 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. It was a couple of telling E-mails that helped bring down Bear Stearns with the subprime loan mess crashing . Like X candidate is running for president!. I always assumed the phrase meant no feelings are incorrect, and it made a lot less sense than the way youve laid it out! Everything the OP described sounds like a non-public record. President issuing an executive order on (issue the agency deals with) No checking out salary information permitted! Take full responsibility. (I thought Al Frankens apology to the fellow entertainer was pretty good, actually. The coworker did the right thing. But your wording indicates that you dont yet have insight into just how much you breached the trust of your company. Your former job will probably only verify your employment unless you broke a governmental regulation. Thats how a lot of people get found out in the end, it doesnt just stop with telling that one friend. That is exactly what could have happened to her government agency with the info that she leaked in the first place. Those questioners would hammer her on this. I worked for a federal government contractor and we were awaiting news of whether we were getting a contract renewal. I had not thought about this issue via this lens, but I think youre 100% right. Separately, when you share, you have to still be oblique enough to not get yourself in trouble. Any of them. its not condescending to point out that what LW did was incredibly foolish. Excitedly texting confidential, FOUO information to a friend who happens to be a journalist, unconscious of the optics and real potential harm? 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. In the real world, it happens often enough that I think its more realistic to talk about the practical ways to do it that keep you on the safe side of the boundaries. I dont think you have to be Catholic.). Also ratty. You broke a rule and you have to take responsibility. You breached confidential information to a journalist. When we accidentally receive a confidential email from people outside our own organisations, things are a little trickier. He was employed elsewhere within a few weeks. And in this case, I beleive that is correct. The thing is, its a big deal that you were given confidential information and then texted it to a friend. Its was exciting and you couldnt wait?! I think she was trying to lessen some of the guilt she felt, but really she should have just sat with that feeling and let it fuel her resolve to never share confidential info with an outside party again. Yep, I have a friend whose grandmother was a codebreaker and took loose lips sink ships seriously till her dying day. A large part of this is creating the interest that will drive The Thing, and the market/desirability of The Thing. 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 deal with it by having friends in the firm who I can say it to (but not in a bar!). Any of our PR folks would be immediately fired. Are you being GDPR compliant in your marketing? OP came to her, she felt guilty, they apparently talked about this a bit, so why not tell her that this cant be kept secret and she has to come forward to her boss ? You are right. High-profile thing the president wanted and agency employees opposed isnt going to happen You made yourself very vulnerable, your mentor knew that, and unfortunately, youre now bearing the consequences. And you might know that you trust that friend 100% to keep it confidential but your employer would prefer to make that call themselves, and thought theyd done so when they told you the information couldnt be shared. 100%? Whose to say OP isnt right that the coworker had it out for her? Ohhhh come on. The main problem is that 'copying data in a very insecure way to be able to bring those data. 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. Im thankful I did this in grad school rather than on the job. The project Im currently working on has confidentiality and embargoes that are all geared toward creating a marketplace moment. I dont know whether you meant it this way, but the co-worker is not untrustworthy for reporting this. We will always be privy to confidential information in our roles, its the nature of what we do. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) I arrived in 69. (sorry for all the theys. English has a pronoun problem.). No matter how small the company, they trust you to safeguard the data, and you didnt do that. So this. trouble, it doesnt seem applicable. But if youre singling people out, or only using it in the context of chastising someone, then yeah, for sure condescending and rude. +1 MUCH stronger. It sounds like youre taking responsiblity for your actions and are doing your best to move on. That means that you definitely shouldnt get into anything about anyone ratting you out; that would make it sound like you dont think it really should have mattered. OP has been mature about admitting fault, lets not undermine that by implying it was no big deal. But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. OPs best bet is to stop blaming their coworker or minimizing what happened. I am trying not to be too harsh but yes you screwed up. Log the incident in an 'cyber accident book'. After all, nobody wants to tell their manager that they might (however accidentally) be responsible for a data breach. Sometimes they go so far as tell the bearer of the news that they now have to soothe them bc its their fault they feel bad. But she also would not tell me if she spent a day at work planning for a war!). The part I think is dangerous is calling the coworker a rat and saying that disclosing to friend was not a mistake. As this was almost the entirety of your job they really couldnt keep you around. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information ninkondi prime stance 3d parallax background mod apk latest version take me to st ives cambridgeshire can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information. Before someone decides to do that, I encourage them to get legal representation.
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