can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information

No work friendship is worth putting my familys financial security on the line. Im pretty sure the information wasnt actually confidential in the legal sense. It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead, but its also nave to assume they wouldnt let anything slip to the exact wrong person. you get to a point where you just really really need to share. OP, take a deep breath. I guarantee you that somewhere in the company handbook for the Government Agency where you worked there is a paragraph about the obligations of an employee who learns of a data breach. Thank you for explaining this! Second coworker only was put on an improvement plan. I dont know. Im still learning Slack, so maybe being naive. I think that is also part of the lesson that OP needs to learn. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. Libel or slander or posting comments about individuals that are not related to your work environment are not protected. The damage from most leaks isnt visible until much later, but it can be massive. 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. But, bald facts, they told you not to do the thing you turned around and did. This former employee who was fired for social media posts will get his I found out accidentally.) Im excited about the project I started today or Something cool is happening at work would be fine to say in most situations. 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. I dont believe this falls under inadvertent, though OP deliberately gave that information to her friend. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. Best wishes! Me too in Government. Even though shes made the same mistake 2 times). Right? Its understandable youre upset, but I wouldnt have given you a second chance either. Thats how a lot of people get found out in the end, it doesnt just stop with telling that one friend. (i hope this story still makes sense with all identifying details purged, but hopefully its clear from context uh why i am purging all those details smdh) I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. On the weekend, I was sending a personal email to a friend. I wonder if OP ever got the chance to correct the misunderstanding. And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. They did exactly the right thing to you. I am now going to assume that its exactly that. The protected classes are race, age (40+), sex, national origin, religion, or disability. If theyd covered up for her/not removed her access to confidential info and she did it again, their jobs would be on the line too the next time. whatever you think is appropriate] to make sure it doesnt happen again.. Got my first job. The info is out, the tech used to spread it is irrelevant and a distraction from the problem. Im sorry but it would definitely be a good idea to recognise that this is a really big deal and learn from it. Nowadays with mobile devices, email and the cloud, it is extremely easy to share files, easy enough that we may accidentally send and share them to the wrong person. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! 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. (Even if its not an area she covers, she likely knows the person who does, and journalists share tips/info all the time.). But reasonable minds can certainly differ. journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. 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 not from the US, and not in government) If I were in OPs place, I would also be upset and feel betrayed. I do have to wonder if the hospital failed to educate its employees on how freaking serious that kind of breach was, And also failed to inform them that the system tracks who looks up a particular patients record. exciting! According to Tessian research, over half (58%) of employees say they've sent an email to the wrong person. I might consider you as a candidate who truly gets it in a way that someone who hasnt been tried by fire might not. This is especially true if the employee in question signed a confidentiality agreement prior to starting the job. Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. It was a really bad decision on my part and I have learned a lot from the experience. Its sounds like you are pretty young and people tend to be a slightly more forgiving when you are young a make a mistake like this as long as you take ownership of it. I feel your pain. You can bounce back! Lack of rigor. Keep your chin up are you not getting any extra help? On the other hand maybe they didnt listen to her or believe her, and in that case shes been fired based on a misunderstanding but that doesnt help her because what she actually did wasnt OK either. Employees can't just post anything they want on Facebook or anywhere else. And there was no social media then, so 100+++ times that now. Yeah, thats a good point. That was a stressful week for all concerned. Its hard though, and its a skill thats learnt over time. I was coming to the comments section to say the same thing. Reacting to being fired for that as if being personally persecuted over some piddly technical rule violation and not being given a second chance? But your friends profession means you often cant share these types of things with her because of other peoples perceptions about it they dont know your friend, and while she may take off the record seriously, some journalists dont and your coworkers have no way of knowing which type of journalist she is. Click "Enable" if it isn't selected already. Talking about your work on a more general level is usually allowed unless your employer or their client is unusually paranoid. My employer lost a lawsuit where they had been sued for violating open records and meetings laws. 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. All three have kept their mouths shut, at least to the best of my knowledge, and I can talk it over without worrying that I will cause a problem with my disclosing. 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. What the saying about eyes, ears, mouths??? 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. I wonder how trustworthy the LW considers themself (sp?)? Eight Warning Signs of Potential Employment Termination and Eight Ways However, were only human. I dont think we fired anyone but the need for absolute confidentiality was reiterated. 3. A major penalty for breach of confidentiality is termination of employment. (Or maybe the coworker did fabricate it, but I feel like thats a massive assumption itself. As Brett said, there was definitely a record in this case. If I were your coworker I would have done the exact same thing. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. Whether she is under FOIA or a state public records law, there are a lot of rules about non-disclosure of certain information. trouble, it doesnt seem applicable. And maybe you should go next week, because the slots love you and you always win. I dont work for the government but I do work with what are technically health records, although theyre not full patient charts or anything. Personal info is never OK to share with anyone, or things that could lead to recognizing a person if someone happens to know that person (and you never know who knows who). 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. But your processing of it has to be at one step removed. The actual problem is that OP shared confidential information. In those cases I have to be even more careful, because minor details might get linked to the news story and suddenly its not anonymous any more. No 2nd chance especially because you knew it was a no-no before you shared. This is probably not a feasible strategy, unless the OP was at the job for only a few months. Show prospective employers that you can reflect on your actions and learn from mistakes, because thats not at all what Im seeing here. 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. Theres an element of common sense to be used. Recurring theme here is that tattling isnt a thing at work. Everything the OP described sounds like a non-public record. OP needs to learn the art of discernment. Even when it doesnt rise to the level of legal shenanigans might happen, it can be pretty serious. 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. I think in both cases, part of the concern is this retroactive removal of risk. Or, maybe they totally overreacted, who knows its impossible to say from here. Everyone absolutely everyone employed at a hospital has to undergo annual HIPAA compliance training. Letter writer: If youre still dealing with this emotionally, focus on the facts. Monitoring should not be excessive and the employee must know what will and won't be caught, for example, whether personal emails will be read. If you want to work in comms, you need to be crystal clear that the TIMING of disclosure is a crucial issue. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information And that doesnt even take into account that I could be prosecuted for divulging any private information. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. I was an HR coordinator at a hospital and even though I did not deal with patient records or patients or anything remotely health care-y, I was required to take the annual training and accept compliance as a mandatory part of my employment. Or at least, feeling like one should have been possible. And you did it over company lines. In government, keep this confidential almost always means never share ever on pain of serious legal sanctions.. But we have embargoes for a reason. And the young comment.

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