Imagine my horror when I opened an envelope today to a document that wasn't intended for me, worse still the document I had in my hand had what I considered confidential information about another persons child. A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach when I realised that this child's parent was probably reading confidential information about my child.

Not one to leave a situation like this alone I went to the office responsible, laid the document and the addressed envelope on the counter and asked what was wrong with the picture I was presenting.

And it only got worse from there on in. The person I was dealing with says "Oh you've got the wrong one, I'll see if I can print your a copy of childs document off but I may not be able to".

Now hands up reader if you can see what's wrong with this picture!

That's right, top marks to you my friend! No apology was forthcoming from the front person of the organisation, no recognition of their error (nor just how serious an error it was) was made, in fact I was shot a 'filthy look' as they seated themselves when someone else in the organisation found the errant copy of my childs document stuffed into the other parents envelope (that had luckily not distributed at that point) and apologised for an error that was not theirs to own.

Now apart from the fact that an apology such as "I'm sorry that this has happened" another thing they could have said was "We will work out how this happened and put a system in place to prevent it happening again!".

Now I'll put the lack of apology down to being overworked and the silly season being upon us, however the lack of systems being in place to protect confidential information is of great concern.

Without systems in place errors such as the above are all too common, when errors are common the public looses confidence in the organisations abilities, when the public looses confidence in the organisations abilities the organisation looses customers/clients.

So I leave you with one last thought. Do you have office systems in place to protect confidential information?

__________________
Mandy
Simplicity VA Services - Making Your Life Easier
Website: Simplicity VA Services
Blog: Simplicity VA Services Blog

Thanks for posting this Mandy. This is a great reminder to all of us to double check our in-office and online security systems and failsafes for protecting both our own business info but our client's information.

Does anyone here have any particular method they use to help ensure information is safely stored (for theft prevention but also for simple, safe maintenance?) [Personally, I use a custom coded document library, password protected, etc. for secure storage off of my hard drive...]

__________________

Originally Posted by Tess

Thanks for posting this Mandy. This is a great reminder to all of us to double check our in-office and online security systems and failsafes for protecting both our own business info but our client's information. Does anyone here have any particular method they use to help ensure information is safely stored (for theft prevention but also for simple, safe maintenance?) [Personally, I use a custom coded document library, password protected, etc. for secure storage off of my hard drive...]

Tess, I have seen you reference your document library on more than one post. Is this something that you maintain in-house on your own hardware, or is this an online document sharing sort of thing?

Originally Posted by ProAdmin Solutions

Tess, I have seen you reference your document library on more than one post. Is this something that you maintain in-house on your own hardware, or is this an online document sharing sort of thing?

I would really be interested in learning more. Security features other than virus protection and a physical fireproof safe are things I lack knowledge in, but recognize their importance.

__________________
Crystal Chambliss - YourAdminCenter
Owner (Virtual Assistant)