The Dangers of Personal E-Mails at Work
Oct. 10 -- In this week's Cybershake, privacy experts remind workers of the risks of using a company's e-mail system for personal messages. Plus, we note Microsoft's effort to help flight fans bring the past 100 years of aviation back to life.
Reminder: At Work, Nothing's Personal
Be careful when you click that "send" button on your office computer. The e-mail message you send could come back to haunt you. Just ask former and current employees of Enron.
As part of its investigation of the scandalized energy giant, the government collected massive amounts of evidence — including more than 1.6 million e-mails to and from Enron workers. And now, all of those messages have been posed on a public, government Web site.
Most of the electronic notes have to do with the highly technical business of trading energy. Some of the messages have to do with human resources, like reminding workers to get flu shots.
But plenty of the e-mail is personal. Very personal.
There are the messages arranging for sailing and skiing trips, as well as messages complaining about the job and so forth.
Then there are more steamy messages.
In one, an e-mailer cryptically writes to an Enron worker, "So, you were looking for a one night stand after all." In another e-mail, someone else ironically wrote: "I hate calling your cell [phone]. You never know who is there."
If only the writer knew who would be reading his or her e-mail now.
And that's a lesson that all Internet users can learn from, says Internet privacy expert Parry Aftab.
"Think before you click 'send,' " says Aftab. "If it's something you don't want read by others, don't do it at work, don't do it by e-mail."
But the lesson is even more important to office workers, says Aftab, because it help shatter a common myth: using the office PC for personal business is OK.
Aftab says most companies use so-called "acceptable use policies" that tell workers flat out they're not supposed to have personal e-mail on their office computers. "You're not supposed to do things like sending [e-mails] to your kids or having romantic e-mails because [the companies] have the right to monitor them," says Aftab.
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