Incorrectly sent email

[Fuckit83]

Fucking auto fill!!

Sent a work email regarding updates to a process, no personal information or anything. But when I cc'd someone in it auto filled to someone outside my organisation. I didn't notice but my colleague did.

I feel physically sick. I have emailed my line manager, my data security team and the person I sent it to incorrectly to report/apologise.

But I'm absolutely petrified I'm going to lose my job because of it 😭

Experienced please!

Presumably too late to recall the message?

The person you accidentally sent to - personal / client / competitor?

you handled the process well. I don’t see this being a sackable offence depending on your sector and the email itself

@LittleBlueBrioTrain

Outside organisation so can't.

@Lesssugarketchup
It was sent to someone who had applied for a job in my department.

ok so it was an external person.

but not a client or competitor?

really does depend on the industry and matter at hand

How long have you been at the company? seniority? Not still on probation?

@Lesssugarketchup 20 years. Manager. Never done anything like this before.

@LittleBlueBrioTrain no not a competitor or client. It was very much "please do this, please don't do that, remember to do this" in relation to a current process.

Financial services here - corporates not individuals so may not be the same rules

• if no private information then no problem
• ask the person to delete it

It happens a few times here across teams - the company acknowledges it is a risk and control put in place - eg we actually had auto fill taken off our emails

Don't worry - it was an error that the company should acknowledge is a risk especially if they have auto fill - it would have happened before and where it's something any human could accidentally do I would really expect there to be a chat about attention to detail / training and no further action.

The important thing is you escalated it as soon as you found out.

Please don't worry

We've all done it at some point - we are humans not machines, we sometimes get things wrong. Given the circumstances I really don't think you'll lose your job, perhaps a verbal warning if they are feeling really mean. Don't panic, it will all be fine

In that case - you know whether or not this is serious more than anyone and the implications?

Was it sensitive information in the sense that it could be embarrassing or give info to a competitor or literally just a bori mg process email? I’d just a boring process email with no personal info then I wouldn’t worry. Maybe a reminder to delete those emails and double check email
adresses before sending?

is your work quite harsh/
dog eat dog? If I did this at mine it wouldn’t be an issue (presuming nonpersonal data).

Even if you were on probation, if this was a one-off genuine error and you handled it professionally, no way would you lose your job for being human. Cached email addresses on Outlook are a blessing and a curse, they can save time but they do carry the risk you've found, not least of all if you're in a rush.

My way of error-checking is the ensure I am looking at each 'suggestion' Outlook gives before accepting it into the "to" field and also try to keep the distribution list as short as possible.

Are you saying in 20 year - this has never ever happened to a colleague? That you can extrapolate the implications from

I think you'll be OK as long as it wasn't anything that could damage the organisations reputation. You handled it exactly as you should. I would try and recall the message and if you can't ask the incorrect recipient to delete the message.

no way would you lose your job for being human

I mean if you were my direct report.

some places march people out the door at the drop of a hat, rather than helping them to learn from experience. In my team, it's "OK you've goofed, but how can you make sure this doesn't happen again?"

@Lesssugarketchup

No that I have been there 20 years (not always a manager of course) Data breaches have occurred in the past - including personal data ones and no one has lost their job.

It's just I have never done one before and the feeling is just horrible!!

I'd remind you operational risk department that they (IT) should have adequate controls in place to prevent this happening - I.e reminder and tick box warning when sending externally.

But no, you won't lose your job - I've seen much worse.

You did the right thing in owning up, if they discipline you they will create a culture where those mistakes will happen and they won't be dealt with appropriately.

If you're a manager surely you know the implications as you would have had inform your staff? Or would it just go above you?

@nancy2022

Wayyy above me. Obviously we know we shouldn't do it, and have training which we (as managers) promote to staff and have to renew every year. It was a genuine totally by accident error. I didn't intentionally send it externally

This happens. You've done the right thing in reporting.

Send an email to the incorrect recipient asking for them to delete the email

Many companies have a standard email footer saying that if you aren't the intended recipient you should delete and ignore the email. This is in place to cover exactly what you have done. Seriously don't worry.

Examples

1 The content of this email is confidential and intended for the recipient specified in message only. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this message with any third party, without a written consent of the sender. If you received this message by mistake, please reply to this message and follow with its deletion, so that we can ensure such a mistake does not occur in the future.
2 This message has been sent as a part of discussion between [Sender’s name] and the addressee whose name is specified above. Should you receive this message by mistake, we would be most grateful if you informed us that the message has been sent to you. In this case, we also ask that you delete this message from your mailbox, and do not forward it or any part of it to anyone else. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

So there you go

worse scenarios than yours and no loss of job

how long have you been in this job?

I have a really common surname and have received loads of accidental emails in my time. Sometimes from senior managers. The worst is when you flag it and they keep copying you in on a chain! This mistake is more common than you think.

It'll be fine op, your IT security team will no doubt log an incident, you'll have to contact the person you sent it to, and ask them to delete it, maybe have to do a cbt course on data security, and that will be that.

I work with customer (big companies) and now and again I sent the wrong thing to the wrong customer, 3 times in 7 years and this is what generally happens. Like you there's never any commercial or sensitive data so the company just have to be seen to have dealt with it.

What is way above you?

Surely you’d be fully informed re what is happening regarding a member of your team?

I have been the recipient of an email like this (more than once). One, from a service company, was actually someone’s CV!

they sent me an email apologising & please can I disregard, it was sent in error. I understood mistakes happen and just acknowledged the mistake, deleted the email & moved on.