Survey Says Risk of Liability for Office E-Mail Increasing

In a follow-up to its 2001 survey, the American Management Association (AMA), in conjunction with secure-message software vendor Clearswift Ltd. and the ePolicy Institute, released the results of its 2003 E-mail Rules, Policies and Practices Survey of 1,100 US businesses. In the US, there is growing deference to workplace e-mail liability: 14% of companies now report that e-mail has been subpoenaed for trial, and 5% indicate that e-mail triggered a law suit. However, for the 75% of companies with e-mail policies, fewer than half of all companies educate employees on them. Further, only one third of companies have established e-mail retention and deletion policies (almost 90% of those provide training on retention and deletion). Enforcement of e-mail policies is being taken seriously in the US, with 22% of respondents indicating that employees have been fired for violating the rules. The survey report prepared for the American Management Association can be found at: http://www.amanet.org/research/pdfs/Email_Policies_Practices.pdf. Summary by: Nicholas J. Whalen