Silicon Valley IT Expert Robert Douglas Quoted in Fast Company Piece on Personal/Professional Email Privacy

IT pros have said it over and over.  Don’t use your personal email account for work.  Personal email accounts lose their privacy if used for business communications.  Plus, you’re risking your company’s data and network.

Yet it keeps happening.

In a September 3 article, Fast Company discussed widespread email privacy mistakes with several IT experts.  Including Robert Douglas, President of PlanetMagpie.

Why Are You Still Making These Basic Email Privacy Mistakes?—Fast Company (September 3, 2015)

Personal Email at Work:  There are Better Ways to Share Files

The Hillary Clinton private email server scandal and the Ashley Madison hack pushed email privacy and security back into the spotlight.  According to cited studies, most workers continue to mix personal and work email.  Even for government work.

Often this involved sending large files to co-workers.  Something their corporate email wouldn’t allow, but their personal Dropbox account would.  Robert spoke against this practice.

"I wouldn’t circumvent—it kind of opens yourself up to repercussions from management.”

Instead, employees should ask what options exist for sharing large files now.  There are no shortage of secure file sharing tools available.

"If I were an employee of one of those companies, that’s how I would approach it: Please tell me what the official way to share this is, and that’s how I’ll do it.”

Always Consult Experts When Talking About Email Privacy

The Fast Company article is the latest in a series of Mr. Douglas’ citations.  He has been quoted on email privacy and IT security many times:

Small Businesses in Silicon Valley Need Protection from Hackers Too (June 19, 2015)
PlanetMagpie Owner Robert Douglas Quoted in CNN Money Report on Hillary Clinton Email Scandal (March 4, 2015)
PM President Robert Douglas on "IT Security for Small Business" Panel March 5 (February 20, 2015)
Corporate Lessons from the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal – WOOF! Newsletter (April 8, 2015)

Email security should concern all businesses and nonprofit organizations.  It pays to familiarize yourself with current information on protecting email.  A company policy requiring employees to keep their work email on work email accounts exclusively is a great start, and making sure they have a filesharing solution for large files should run close behind.