And most of the real socialising happened at house parties and dinner parties, not restaurants or bars. Yeah. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. The Smurfs have a secret colony in the woods of Maine!. Embargoes and off-the-record information are for journalists who are actually covering a story and in most cases that information can be shared in the newsroom (by saying a source told me off record if confidentiality is really important) and acted upon (you can start to write out a story to be ready when the embargo lifts, or call work to corroborate the off-the-record with on background or on record sources). Any tax or benefit records, any survey or census records if I access them without good reason its a firing offence. If asked specifially try to describe in detail what happened and what you learned from it, for example: ask if the new employer has clear guidelines on data handling. Privacy Policy and Affiliate Disclosures. Im not sure you can conclude that it was publically disclosable. As a former journalist, I can assure you journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. I do have to wonder if the hospital failed to educate its employees on how freaking serious that kind of breach was, although Id still put the failure on the feet of the violators. Second, OP should never have told their friend, trusted or notthe problem is that OP should not ave disclosed it to anyone. Breach of confidentiality can be described as an act of gross misconduct, so deal with issues that arise in a timely manner, in line with your procedures and look at any previous cases to ensure fairness and consistency. Or, maybe they totally overreacted, who knows its impossible to say from here. Ethically, you dont have to do anything. BUT, that shouldnt excuse leaking things, and theres a big difference between a spouse or a journalist, though I can understand why it can still be difficult. Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. Nothing got out about this before it was supposed to. I had friends who would jokingly-semi-serious ask me if I was poking around their accounts and such while I was working there and I would deadpan look at them and say your finances and personal information isnt interesting enough to lose my job over and then change the subject. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. This. Sometimes, like you said, you dont get a second chance. On the non-security side of things its fascinating to learn what the folks in the booth behind me are working on as Im quietly eating lunch, but its a serious security violation to discuss that kind of thing in public and it makes me cringe so hard when it happens. If you dont need to / want to share with the boss share with your closest family/friend, assuming they dont work at the same place or have friends/contacts there. There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. 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. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. She would ask every rep if they were using TEAPOT o service accounts, and would proudly exclaim, My daughter built TEAPOT! She thought she was connecting with the people who helped her. Same applies here as you stated. If that is so, there is nothing you can do to avoid the termination and you should be looking for new employment. Later when I moved on, it became my absolute best interview topic when asked about a mistake and how I handled it. Lack of rigor. Clearly yall do not understand handling confidential information. Your coworker didnt choose to know this information and does not owe you silence. You may not even realise your mistake until the person you meant to send the message to says they didn't receive it (or you have a flurry of missed phone calls, as in Serena Williams . Which means have to vet things like your friend is a journalist, but doesnt cover your area? I love my younger co-workers and value their fresh take on things and energy, but there is a clear pattern of not understanding reputation risk and liability. How you analyze the situation and internalize the lesson is more important than wording for future employers right now. Yeah, I agree. 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 once interviewed someone with a great resume but had switched specialties within the field. Yes, if you're sending a mass email, BCC makes sure no-one else sees each other's emails and therefore reduces the risk of a breach. That, and I never slapped another plucky again. Not to mention if you tell a lie (even by omission), its a lie you have to keep up, indefinitely. And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. But if youre singling people out, or only using it in the context of chastising someone, then yeah, for sure condescending and rude. 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. It may be that the decision is made and it is just a matter of time before you are gone. Remember to be kind to yourself: youre human, you made a mistake and, as you said, youve learned from it. 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. Yes, when I worked at a financial firm I believe that exact question was on a privacy training test: If I run across the name of a celebrity in the client management system while performing my duties, its okay to tell friends and family about it, True or False?. I want to caveat that when I originally wrote this, it had just happened and I was still extremely emotional about it, which is probably why I chose to leave out important information in my initial question. 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. The thing is, its a big deal that you were given confidential information and then texted it to a friend. How do I go about asking for a job on another team? as a manager, should I not wear a childless shirt in my off-hours? Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. Definitely anti-climactic to actually know at this point! I agree that you can learn how to share without breaching confidentiality. At the same time, though, its a program the average American would likely never have heard of and would give less than a crap about. This was supposed to be a stand-alone comment. No, shes a person with ethics who plays by the rules. You made yourself very vulnerable, your mentor knew that, and unfortunately, youre now bearing the consequences. What you did was misconduct. Ohhhh come on. If there were excetions, that would be explicitly stated. 9 Posts. It can depend on what mechanisms are in place to protect the content of the email, who is sending the email, who it is being sent to, the content of the email, and whether the subject of the HIPAA information has provided their written authorization for unsecured PHI to be . Like, its so obviously wrong that people dont even talk about it. I can remember almost exactly what I said: It was wrong of me to put that information out. I am now going to assume that its exactly that. It doesnt matter that the information is going public next week. Good luck! Any info I pull, I have to be able to explain why I pulled it and what I was doing with it. So you let the cat out of the bag about the cat your zoo bagged? An example: NEVER by email unless explicitly given the go-ahead). Also to prevent someone who might be a bit dangerous, from hurting you. I work as a contractor on a program that just announced 10 new cities will be joining. This mixed with the coworkers inflated story, I would be more than annoyed by this coworker too. Having a mentor at a different organization in a similar role might be a good idea for the future. This is important both in terms of owning your mistake and not blaming the person who reported 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. Its to prevent covering of tracks or retaliation or extinction bursts (Im about to be caught for X may as well make the punishment worthwhile and do Y and Z too, or if they are acting with deliberate malign intent Im caught, better leak as much as possible asap). They also rely on constant prompting that can give even the most diligent employees click fatigue after a while. Period. Instead, the employees found out by reading the news instead, which hurts morale. you can include that in there too, not as a way to cast doubt on their decision but as a way to indicate this was a fluke, not a pattern of bad judgment. This includes understanding what you did wrong and explaining how you might have approached this in future (hint: ask boss, transfer via encrypted USB if necessary and allowed. Having a natural, human reaction doesnt mean shes in the wrong field. (For the record, I always told people I was interviewing as a source that there was no such thing as off the record with me its not a requirement of our field, theres no law saying we have to follow that request if asked, so if the subject didnt want me to print something, they shouldnt tell me. Yep! Why are Suriname, Belize, and Guinea-Bissau classified as "Small Island Developing States"? Before I was born, there was a project where mother had to get clearance as well. Feelings can be irrational though, or overblown, or immature, or any number of shades of wrong that means you shouldnt give them 100% credence. I feel LWs pain. 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. How is an ETF fee calculated in a trade that ends in less than a year? See Rule 1.2 (d). Theres an element of common sense to be used. Separately, when you share, you have to still be oblique enough to not get yourself in trouble. Conversely, I cant tell him about certain things from my work, though at least he knows what I do. No one ever called for a reference. I just want to remind people that it happened. 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. A supervisor discovers that an employee has recently downloaded thousands of pages of confidential Company billing and financial information, and e-mailed it to her personal e-mail address. It was bananas. In a couple of hours, the news agencies were calling the federal government, to verify the news. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. Yeah, this is a big part of it. 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. 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. 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. On other occasions, you might accidentally receive a confidential email with information meant for one person (or a few people) you know. 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. What am I doing wrong here in the PlotLegends specification? Thats the person were gonna call the blabbermouth in this situation? The ex-coworker reached out to me asking if I could send them a copy of the report so they didnt have to start from scratch and repeat the same work they had already done. 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. Appropriately so, but still, wow. While it clearly appears LW would not have done any of this, the regulations and policies are written to protect the employer and coworker from any potential negative actions. This is so true. I think she got paid in sandwiches and the knowledge she was the only woman to neck with Nero Wolfe, though. The anger I hold for my coworker is something I will deal with over time. Don't be me, is what I'm saying I guess! Then the stories died down and the pressure with it even though there were still occasional leaks. December 15, 2009, 1:05 PM. You said in your letter that you were so excited that you wanted to share it in celebration. Moving forward, the best way to handle it is be honest. If you cant keep a secret, this is not a field you should be in. I will be in so much trouble if anyone finds out! your blindsided coworker is not required to enter into a cover-up conspiracy with you. It doesnt matter that its a good friend of yours who happens to be a journalist shes a journalist, and her JOB is to tell people about things she finds out about. 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. The first job will be the hardest but gradually you are less and less likely to be asked about an older 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. Im excited about the project I started today or Something cool is happening at work would be fine to say in most situations. Really? a. problem then you APOLOGIZE and APOLOGIZE rather than defend yourself. They are pretty free with stating exactly why someone was fired. 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. I used to handle accounts, but could not handle my own. Sharing HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL info. My guess is that the LW was fired for a first offense because they refused to take responsibility for their breach. If it bleeds, it leads, and if its not bleeding, you might as well kick it a few times to see if itll start bleeding Nope. Where I work, there are policies that state an employee that finds out about certain kinds of misconduct is mandated to report it or face consequences if it comes out that they knew and didnt report it. My 2cents, LW if something was so exciting you couldnt keep it in, you were in the wrong field. It would have been nice- but Im sure the coworker was also pooping masonry. Im interested in the fact that the journalist friend is described as 100% trustworthy. Non-public just because it hadnt been announced yet isnt the same as the location of the emergency bunker. Oh my. Theres a great blog called SorryWatch (.com) that analyzes & critiques apologies made by public figures. OP: What exactly do you want her to do so you feel satisfied that shes recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened? 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. Im sorry but it would definitely be a good idea to recognise that this is a really big deal and learn from it. Within hours, there were writeups on tech blogs about the new iPhone before its official release. read something out loud THEN realize that it wasnt public information. If you told, you breached confidentiality, no matter what the other people did. You take this as a hideously painful lesson, and change your behavior across the board, and most people could see that as a learning moment, from which you learned. It will get out, eventually. And it is so hard! The Expert above is not your attorney, and . It was the wrong thing to do, and Im sorry. The info I released did not in fact cause any problems, but I tremble now because it so easily could have, in even slightly different circumstances. Yup, landline. The actual problem is that OP shared confidential information. 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. Confidential information is meant to be confidential and not shared with anyone. If the email involves sensitive information, this could be a serious problem for the people involved. 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 ? Shouldnt she be in trouble too? and there she would be, going down with you. OP, I can understand why you would want to talk to someone who was mentoring you about something like this, but when you tell someone you work with that you committed a pretty serious breach of duty and sharing nonpublic information is pretty much always a serious breach!! Organisations can set up static rules (for example, you can send emails to business A but not business B), but these traditional methods are rigid and unreliable. He was very good about keeping track of his boundaries, and we got very used to finding ways of being politely interested in how his work was going for him without putting pressure on him about the details. Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. 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. As someone who practices public relations, calling this victimless gives me a lot of anxiety. 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.
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