If the friend had blabbed, shed have been fired, anyway, even without confiding in the senior employee. The obligation to report a security breach doesnt include warning the violator. Fascinating (and fun!) Build sneaky protections into your life so you get away with violating important rules is NOT what LW needs to learn. If a member of your staff violates this explicit. A misdirected email describes an instance where an email is sent to the wrong person or the wrong attachment has been added to an email that has the correct recipients in it. There was no warning, no suspension, nothing. I just want to remind people that it happened. And that doesnt even take into account that I could be prosecuted for divulging any private information. Nothing I said contradicts this. Based on the post its probably public now, so I would guess its likely not too exciting. Perhaps the email was intended for a client in which case the clients data is at risk and the sender has inadvertently committed a data leak. I dont know, I think thats overstating. Second chances arent a foregone conclusion in any aspect of life or work; your expectation that there should have been one at all suggests a level of entitlement that needs to be examined. But from there you can talk about what you learned from the experience and how this makes you a better employee/candidate now. I also wanted to address a couple things that jumped out at me in this part: Also, am I even allowed to bring up the fact that someone ratted me out? Fired. Yeah, I wish the mentor had walked the LW directly to the boss to discuss this openly. Back in the dinosaur era (early 80s) the directors secretary was the only one tasked with typing up yearly evaluations on high-level staff. I wont get into too many details, but where I work had a plan that was controversial and there was both opposition to it, internal and external. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. You wrote, The only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly. But you werent fired because your coworker reported you; you were fired because you broke a serious rule. I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. As far as I know, he held the highest security clearance a civilian could have. LW used Slack at work (and was not supposed to) I was trying to disagree with the idea that it puts journalists in a terrible position to receive off-the-record info, not that it would ameliorate the employers concern. There is a greater issue here regarding judgement. Thats real life. See Rule 1.2 (d). If you stay in comms, good to always remember the optics. This is an issue in most fields. To be clear, you were fired for admittedly breaking confidentiality not because of your coworker. But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. In fact, think of it this way: you put your journalist friend in a situation where she was potentially sitting on a scoop but she actually kept mum to protect you. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. NEVER by email unless explicitly given the go-ahead). He shared it with one person, telling them it was a joke. We also got early warning that legislators were encouraged to resign, a day or two before the press releases. While I dont think the LW should be endlessly flagellating herself, this was her fault, not the co-worker. OP has a right to be annoyed with Coworker, but Coworker was doing her job as well. They are designed to trick the recipient . However, I will agree that, per OPs statement, the information appears to be unsolicited and doesnt seem like it would have been considered a records request (who knows, we dont have a lot of information and what we have has been proven to be distorted). Because she knows other journalists who do cover your area and one of them just might need a serious break right when she knows this information. Policy change that is a big deal to staff that works on it, but very in the weeds for the general public (regulation is going to be changed in a way that is technically important but at most a medium-sized deal), Fairly real examples that would be much bigger deals: But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. Having worked in communications and journalism for the past 15 years, I think this ishonestly really bad. and sent to multiple people (!!)? If you cant maintain confidentiality, you can work elsewhere. Before I hired you, Id want to know you were familiar with and in agreement with our ethical code, which talks a lot about protecting our clients. Just *looking* at the account would get you noticed and your hand slapped (if you were lucky). OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. If you own your mistake, meditate on it, learn from it, and learn to tell the story of how you learned from it, then you might be able to get another job in the communications industry working for a company that does not handle sensitive client data, or in another industry where there are no potential confidentiality issues with your job. You believe your friend is trustworthy but, wow, the optics of sharing with a friend who is a journalist are really bad, and . On the weekend, I was sending a personal email to a friend. I remind people about once a year that not only can I not look up their medical info on my own, I cant look it up even if they ask me to, and I get in even more trouble if I look up my own medical info. However, were only human. Is it possible to rotate a window 90 degrees if it has the same length and width? And by becoming the must fanatically trustworthy discreet person. The part I think is dangerous is calling the coworker a rat and saying that disclosing to friend was not a mistake. The type of violation you are talking about normally only applies to confidential (shall close) records and not non-public (may close) records. But at the end of the day, the reputational risk to my company, versus the relatively low-level risk of having to replace someone entry-level, was just too great to bear. Its definitely not a spur if the moment decision. What you did was misconduct. Its also possible that she got caught in a broader crackdown on leaks and thus wasnt given a second chance when she otherwise might have been. Since its a government agency, I have to wonder if there are regulations in place about this kind of leak as well, most places that deal with confidentiality clauses arent messing around with them. This is to prevent LW from trying to destroy any evidence. I would have been fired if I did any one of the things OP did when I worked for the feds (e.g., using Slack, speaking to a journalist without authorization even if they were a long-time friend, disclosing soon-to-be-public information before it was publicly available). With regards to getting a new job within the software engineering/analytics/data science field, I wouldn't lie on application form and in interviews if asked why I left my old job. In the worst cases though, businesses can lose clients and employees can lose jobs. How do I tell potential future employers why I got fired and have them still want to hire me? 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. But heres the thing you still have to have a ton of discretion about how you share and where. Oh yeah, my response wasnt to you it was just to continue what Alanna said. 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. 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?. Spek raised a good point- find out what your HR policy is so you know what to be prepared for in an interview. Some offenses are serious enough that a single incident is enough to fire someone. Remember when Beyonc lip synched at Obamas inauguration? Calling this victimless shows OP still doesnt have insight into their behavior. Life may not look better in 6 months but I bet it does in 3 years. my boss read my Skype conversations, parental involvement with employees under 18, and more, my manager and coworker are secretly dating, boss will never give exceeds expectations because he has high standards, and more, update: I supervise a manager who falsified an employee write-up but I dont think she should be fired, stolen sandwiches, disgusting fridges, dish-washing drama: lets talk about office kitchen mayhem, interviewer scolded me for my outfit, job requires an oath of allegiance, and more, update: a DNA test revealed the CEO is my half brother and hes freaking out, my entry-level employee gave me a bunch of off-base criticism. From there they have 72 hours to resolve the situation. LW doesnt seem defensive at all here, and its okay to feel upset while still taking ownership of their actions. Were considering opening ours up to partner agencies, and I spent a good two hours cleaning up the old messages in the general chat. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. Have you learned from your mistake? Then what? Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. . Contact the GDPR manager at once. For many fed and state agencies, non-public records _must_ be released on a records request despite their non-public status unless they fit into a narrow set of explicit exemptions. 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). I was fired over the phone. Assuming OP was correct and journalist friend never would have said anything, OP could have pretended it never happened. Im thinking of the Elizabeth who went on a 20-email rage about being called Liz, or even the old 1970s memos from the Tiger Oil CEO that found new viral life in the digital age. Learn how to protect your investment management firm through intelligent email DLP. It should go without saying: a breach of confidentiality could and would wind up in a bar complaint in my jurisdiction. If not, that would be an additional reason for your bosses to take the maximum option to respond. Yes. Regulation people have heard of is going to be changed/repealed and its a big deal I wouldnt be surprised if there was a state or federal regulation that she violated by sharing that information. Leaking information can actually be the right thing in some cases. Loved your opening act for Insolent Children, btw. This has to be, and often is, done formally, with agreements to give something secret in advance so the journalist can prep a story for later, when its OK to share. they dont owe it to you to offer that opportunity, That reminds me of the guys who say, I know I cheated on you, but I want a second chance.. Think of speaking with a colleague like speaking with your boss. 2. So, I can talk about it, I can say Omg, there was one scene that I was just like SuperCheese! and rolling my eyes. I have news from my job that I cannot share with some coworkers. Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. would be frustrating if she had a good relationship with them, or if she cared a lot about the reputation of her publication as a whole. I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. obviously i cant know that for sure though. OP, if everything that was predictably risky, harmful, dangerous, bad, illegal or wrong really felt bad on some core level, we would almost never need to make rules. Say I have a friend working on a presidential campaign, and she tells me theres a bunch of debate about the candidates strategy, I have to decide whether to mention that to my colleague who covers the candidate. The penalty for breach of confidentiality isn't restricted to employees who have . They might tell superiors accidentally, out of frustration (e.g. It would probably breach a few laws in other European countries too.