Last week I (Louise) received an email from someone whose name I recognised, but couldn’t remember meeting in person. On opening the email my heart sank. There, in the ‘To’ field, were about 100 names and email addresses – possibly their entire address book – for every other recipient to see!
Although we covered this last year in How NOT to send out Email promotions, it’s still going on and people don’t seem to realise how annoying it is to have your email address displayed in this way. We all complain about the increasing amount of unsolicited junk mail arriving in our Inboxes and yet part of the solution is in our own hands.
Now I love Email Marketing and unashamedly ask for people’s email addresses so I can add them to my list. However, just as I wouldn’t dream of giving out someone’s phone number without checking with them first, I treat their email address with equal respect and confidentiality.
And the story doesn’t end there …..
As I scrolled down the screen, I was horrified to see that the message included all of this person’s previous employment history, their contact details and their National Insurance number.
I immediately sent a message to the sender asking if they realised the implications of what they had done. Such personal details are like gold dust to the identity fraudsters that lurk online, waiting for such opportune carelessness. It’s so important to be security conscious in all your communications and transactions, and the internet is definitely not the place to let your guard down. Even if you’re typing a private message on a screen in front of you, the moment you hit ‘Send’, that message is no longer private.
Ironically it turned out that this person had no idea they had sent their private CV to their entire email address book and were absolutely mortified when I told them what had happened.
Mistakes are a part of life but please, do take care to keep your details – and those of your contacts – secure and confidential.
