Organizations are keen to promote responsible attitudes towards written communications as well as deter non-business/anti-business activities such as excessive personal email, IP theft and inappropriate communications which jeopardize the organization's reputation.
Emailing inappropriate or illegal content
- Disciplinary action for new technology-related offences (email and internet abuse) now exceeds the combined total for dishonesty, violence, and health and safety breaches. The most common single reason for disciplinary action is the sending of unauthorised emails (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development)
- 27% of Fortune 500 companies have fought harassment claims concerning email (IDC)
- 42% of staff are unaware that actions such as email harassment of fellow employees could land their employer in court (DataSec)
There have been numerous high profile dismissals concerning sending inappropriate or illegal content by email. HP recently dismissed 15 staff and suspended more than 100 on full pay pending an investigation into the misuse of its corporate email system to circulate pornographic material. And what about the hidden cost? A well known law firm suffered a reputation hit in 2000 which made them the laughing stock of the world.
To deal effectively with a case of email abuse, an organization requires the ability to rapidly and easily investigate and prove what offence was committed when by whom, be it for internal disciplinary proceedings, or as evidence in an industrial tribunal or court case. All too often it is too difficult or expensive to restore email records from back-up tapes, and employees know this and exploit the weakness.
Perot Systems was recently ordered by a UK Judge to search all their email servers across the world for one ex-employee's email records, even though they claimed it would cost £4.5m. "Tough", was the judge's attitude.