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That makes the violation much worse. Doesnt matter that its your friend or that you trust her, its still a huge liability. (Drunk driving is an extreme example of this. This is incredibly condescending. He shared it with one person, telling them it was a joke. I know that I messed up and I shouldnt have told anyone; in a moment of weakness I texted one of my best friends. This is 100% on you. Maybe thats the case in your field, but usually confidential doesnt mean that. This is a situation that youre going to have great difficulty explaining away and I might prefer a resume gap to being at such a disadvantage. 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. 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. 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. I didnt know how to say it without seeming to condone the breach. Maybe you havent worked with, or known anyone whos worked with, sunshine law and right-to-know, but this is incredibly serious for anyone who has. The secretary is going to be featured at [cool upcoming event]! (Or maybe the coworker did fabricate it, but I feel like thats a massive assumption itself. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Check out this article on that HERE. This makes it seem like they owe LW something, to be loving and release her to her best life. That response will likely impress an employer that she has grown and learned, that she is honest and has some self-awareness, and that she would be worth trusting. I was kinda thinking that an otherwise level headed and calm employee wouldnt punch a colleague unless the other guy had been doing something truly egregious. Im just explaining that the information was likely a non-public record and not a confidential record. 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? The first person needs to understand that most of the time, you arent entitled to negotiate a yes, because the answer is no. It can feel like the end of the world but I promise you it isnt. confusedabouteverything Forumite. Ive been thinking a lot about apologies in general lately, and one of the most thought-provoking pieces of advice Ive seen is to always err on the side of assuming that whatever you did was a bigger deal than you think. Contact the recipient Get in touch with the recipient as soon as you notice the mistake and ask them to delete the email without reading or sharing it. Everyone makes mistakes at all points in our careers. Better to say in a single instance of poor judgment I let a piece of information get outside of the company to one person which I immediately knew was a mistake and I notified someone in my company. In most reporting policies i am aware of it would be considered tipping off and get the person reporting in trouble. She has to protect her job and reputation as well in the end, she shouldnt have to risk her own job stability due to your choices! But how do I explain this story to future employers? Im not sure you can conclude that it was publically disclosable. It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead. Best of luck, and believe us all when we tell you that if you sound at all dismissive of the seriousness of this, prospective employers will (rightfully) worry that you may have a similar lapse in judgement again. And being mad at them is an effort to dodge responsibility and ownership of the actions that WERE at fault. So Id do what Alison says here, and save your OMG I cant keep this in confessions for your pets. And that is a hard pill to swallow, for sure. [TN] Accidentally emailed very confidential information. What - Reddit In a truly dangerous/vital public information sphere there are agency heads/regulators/IG offices/congressional members/even the police depending on the issue that you should contact before going to the press. Its also true that people do break confidentiality for a variety of reasons, but people who are really really REALLY aware that they are breaking confidentiality and how big the consequences of it are, are also on top of not leaving a footprint that can be traced back to them. Much as we like to think confidentiality is transferrablethat as long as the people we tell keep things confidential we didnt breach confidentiality to tell themits not. Email Basics: Email Violations Can Jeopardize Your Job - GCFGlobal.org 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. Oh, so LW cant keep a secret from her reporter friend or her coworker, but were ragging on the coworker for not keeping LWs secret? 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. Was alphabet city watching his ass, no idea. I would not immediately snap into how can I report this? The fact is, its just not their secret to share. Employees. Its a common occurrence, especially within a large business where autocorrect can incorrectly select people with similar names. 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. I would feel terrible about it, definitely, and probably think about it for a while after, but ultimately, Id need to prioritize my family and act in a way that would protect my job/salary/health insurance so I could continue to provide for my them. Whose to say OP isnt right that the coworker had it out for her? Not saying you did this! Oh, dear. It makes the sender aware of their mistake and less likely to bother you again in the future. I dont love not being able to tell her things (even though we are each others I promise not to tell anybody (but Friend) person), the way we share this information is by forwarding press releases once the information is public. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. I once interviewed someone with a great resume but had switched specialties within the field. Well, it has been released now, so technically we could. OP wasnt a journalist. 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. Accidental disclosure of PHI includes sending an email to the wrong recipient and an employee accidentally viewing a patient's report, which leads to an . You said in your letter that you were so excited that you wanted to share it in celebration. Since that didnt happen Im not surprised you werent given a second chance. OP, think about your choice to share with this person. Businesses have a term for that kind of behaviour, and that is 'data leakage'. I was in tech there and had worked on a new interface for agents, lets call it TEAPOT. 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. The joker on the other hand was running off at the mouth. Just because a story wasnt published about it doesnt mean it wasnt discussed internally among coworkers. Ive heard complaints from folks who arent allowed to give positive references to former coworkers who earned them. Much safer. There ARE circumstances in which keep this confidential means you can tell very close, trusted people about it as they did in the letter. Thats why they told you no. Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to personal mailbox - how do I get another job? That really set the tone for the reference she gave. Age doesnt matter here. Does your company know she could have called the police? Or you mistyped her email by one letter and it went to a colleague who had no reason to respect the embargo? Keep your chin up are you not getting any extra help? She already got that advice from Alison. Agreed, except for this: a journalist, who by profession is at risk for leaking said confidential information. Know your workplace rights: New laws protect employees during - NBC12 But when I wrote letters to the llama farmers whose llamas had bitten a client whose story about her life-threatening goat allergy was featured in the papers (obviously this is not what actually happened), I had to be sure I didnt say anything about the llama farmer letters that could link to the goat story. I actually think your big mistake was telling your coworker, not telling a trusted friend. was my company right to fire my coworker for accidentally sending me a 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.. (Im not from the US, and not in government) If I were in OPs place, I would also be upset and feel betrayed. So I guess maybe it is a generational thing? My company is not going to jeopardize a $500M/yr contract over my mouth. 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. This was more or less what I was thinking. Forgetting the attachment. Ive had to fire someone in a one-strike situation for what I genuinely believe was an honest mistake because it was too big a risk to keep that person on staff going forward. Or did you double down on not my fault, not a big deal, and co-worker shouldnt have said anything? I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. You said it yourself that you were working on client confidential information, and sent it to your personal mailbox. Including their reputation being damaged. Hopefully there still something to be said for that! 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. The point still stands, however, that Contract Killers proposed sanctions likely dont appear to apply here. The only thing an employer may not do is make employment decisions based upon you being a member of a protected class. Can I be fired for breaching data protection? Oh honey, how young are you? Because I said I wouldnt, I knew there would be consequences if something like your story happened to me, and also because, hows that going to look to a potential future employer that might value confidentiality equally highly? I stopped when my boss had a stern talk with me about it, but also because I noticed that I was getting the bad news later, too (other people at my level were told about layoffs the night before, I was told shortly before the companywide announcement) and I realized I was getting a reputation as someone who could not be trusted to keep my mouth shut. LW, please, please look hard at what happened and how you can promise yourself first of all that this was the last time. Your coworker was not at all in the wrong here, OP. Things Never to Send Over Work Email - Business Insider I would go through the channels to fire someone immediately over this, because it would make me lose all trust in them and if I can no longer be confident in their abilities to do their job effectively without spillage, theyre of no use to my team. For context I work with PHI covered under HIPAA for my job. Im more curious about what KIND of exciting information it was. Per my story above, when I made the mistake that I was fired for, I did take responsibility at the time, and they fired me anyway. Some things a company wouldnt want you to tell a competitor, but wouldnt mind if you told your spouse. Those questioners would hammer her on this. Likewise, they would have fired you anyways regardless because they now feel that they cannot trust you with information. You broke a rule and you have to take responsibility. Yeah, I wish the mentor had walked the LW directly to the boss to discuss this openly. I felt as defensive and upset as you. LW doesnt seem defensive at all here, and its okay to feel upset while still taking ownership of their actions. But I dont think it helps OP to feed a narrative that prevents OP from owning the situation going forward. If someone told me something that I know Id have to report, I would report it. I empathize, having both been in government service where the people can let the boundaries get too loose and, separately, had a career-breaking moment in a toxic workplace. December 15, 2009, 1:05 PM. When I asked about the job move he said he had failed to make a required disclosure on a sale and so was fired, but how he took it to heart and had behaved since. Doesnt matter if it was a friend. That said, is there any reason you need to answer these questions? My code is GPL licensed, can I issue a license to have my code be distributed in a specific MIT licensed project? The misrepresentation of what happened is my concern. They might try to use silence to get you to say more. A true 100% owning of what you did. Yep, I think its worth LW remembering that while she knew shed never leak anything again, her boss and co-workers dont. 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).