He was very good about keeping track of his boundaries, and we got very used to finding ways of being politely interested in how his work was going for him without putting pressure on him about the details. Thank you it was getting boring to read everyones outrage. This is why you never ever confidentially share work-related things with colleagues. Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. Im a journalist, so, yes. You didnt have a right to privileged information once you demonstrated that you werent trustworthy. LW, please, please look hard at what happened and how you can promise yourself first of all that this was the last time. Weve all made mistakes. Regulation people have heard of is going to be changed/repealed and its a big deal still cant believe that happened. Accidents do happen, we are all human but what rights you have if you share private company information by mistake really depends on a few things: the type of information that was accidentally distributed, how this impacted your company, and what the consequences were for you. Even though shes made the same mistake 2 times). It would have been better if she had told you first that she was going to tell someone I dont believe this falls under inadvertent, though OP deliberately gave that information to her friend. And there are reasons the rule is dont leak, rather than dont leak (except to people youre *really sure* wont tell any one else (except people who they are really sure they wont tell anyone else (except people theyre absolutely positive wont tell anyone else))). She probably felt she had a duty to disclose it and she may well have. However, at the time, I did feel guilty so I confided in an older coworker who I considered a mentor. I think if the OP had framed the situation as, how can I get another job after being fired for being a whistleblower after I shared important but unfortunately confidential information with a journalist because the public has a right to know, these comments would be very different. And they also need to have an acute understanding that the timing of disclosure makes a HUGE, TREMENDOUS difference. I dont find it understandable that the OP expected a second chance for this, as someone who routinely deals with unclassified-but-FOUO, Confidential, and Secret information, except insofar as I can have sympathy for someone who perhaps didnt understand the gravity of their actions until consequences came down. It's difficult to prevent a leak from happening again if you don't know how it occurred in the first place. Im curious about how to turn the page, and I think your advice is really good about this own it, let go of the defensiveness, be ready to talk about changes youve made so it wont happen again. Sorry this happened, OP! You arent entitled to a second chance to screw this up. This is an issue in most fields. Or that might not make a difference on how its interpreted. Equally, when we had a client who does the same job role as someone I know, I had to completely embargo that piece of information in my head, because I know that its a small field and my friend might recognise the detail I thought was vague enough to be anonymous. "Even if it were, transmitting some personal data by email does not of itself breach data protection laws in any jurisdiction" Actually in the UK the Data Protection Act would apply as it is being transmitted outside of the company without the express authorisation from the data subject. Right? Another point: you didnt just accidently tell about it. Heres the story: I worked for a large government agency, in communications. [duplicate]. And I dont think it helps the OP to say that she doesnt have the right to have feelings of resentment toward the coworker. If she had been doing something perfectly acceptable, seen by someone who misunderstands the situation, and fired because of that, then she would be an innocent victim of a very unfair employer. I guarantee you that somewhere in the company handbook for the Government Agency where you worked there is a paragraph about the obligations of an employee who learns of a data breach. Because I can almost guarantee that your reputation in that organization would never recover, even if you had remained employed. A few weeks ago I worked on a medical chart for A Big Rockstar, but not only do I get fired if I tell anyone which one, I get fired if I open up a single page of his chart that I cant explain, if asked, what the exact and specific work-related reason for opening that page was. You cant even take a look at *your own* records if you are also a patient at the medical facility. [Well-known bad person] is going to be fined/punished/arrested. It was a big enough thing that they gave you a 1st chance. It seems like LW has had time to process and isnt being combative. Then your story isnt just I did something wrong, they found out, and I got fired, its I did something wrong, I knew it was a mistake and told a senior member of my team about it, and as a result I got fired. The more you can acknowledge that you took responsibility for your mistake, the better it sounds for a potential employer. Like, its so obviously wrong that people dont even talk about it. These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. How on earth could you know this was a misunderstanding? Confidentiality is a big deal for a lot of reasons, and people in those types tend to respect that. Accidental disclosure of PHI includes sending an email to the wrong recipient and an employee accidentally viewing a patient's report, which leads to an . Share information about a company merging before its publicly announced? Whether she is under FOIA or a state public records law, there are a lot of rules about non-disclosure of certain information. Judgement errors tend to repeat themselves. This x 1000 to the comment by ENFP in Texas. 3. Shes never even heard any of the names of our clients, except for a couple she met once at an adjunct social function. It would have been better if she had told you first that she was going to tell someone, but whether she warns you first has no bearing on whether she was obligated to disclose. The Smurfs have a secret colony in the woods of Maine!. The difference is if the potential for and type of jail time you risked. As a sidenote: *Even if* you think it *wasnt* a big deal, when you get hauled into the boss office and told it. I didnt read it that way, its not a question of the coworker being Untrustworthy, its a matter of the OP not being able to judge who she can trust to keep things quiet. Let me tell you what happened to the people who were not on the care team and accessed a newsworthy medical case. Likewise, LW needed to understand that you dont get a next time not to tell anyone confidential information just because you get it now that they meant it when they said the information was confidential. The misrepresentation of what happened is my concern. If I ever texted a journalist about nonpublic information Id be fired. I recall a year or so into this administration at least a couple federal departments making A Big Deal out of leaks because it seemed like every other story (usually negative) was quoting an anonymous source sharing sensitive information they werent authorized to release. Or the surrounding land if its something that will raise property values. Man I am swamped with the publicly known project I am barely treading water. It was absolutely drilled into all of our heads during grad school and training that you can never, ever do this. Thats not really a response to the OP but more a pushback on some the comments. People leak or share things to journalists they know all the time, with agreements by those journalists on how to share it. Yes, you can get fired for opening a phishing email. The coworker could have totally done the right thing and the LW would still have a right to be annoyed and hurt by the action. Im confused about the fact-finding meeting. (i hope this story still makes sense with all identifying details purged, but hopefully its clear from context uh why i am purging all those details smdh) Thats not how embargoes work, and the reasons why we have embargoes are important and valid, even if they may seem like not a big deal in the context of a specific disclosure. Never mind firing for leaks, they dont even hire people who appear to have poor judgement about confidential information. Sorry if this sounds like nitpicking, Im only pushing because, as PollyQ said, if OP uses this as a reason and her former employer tells a prospective employer the reasons for her termination, it will appear that she was lying and make her look untrustworthy. But what you were effectively asking your employer to do is trust a totally unknown (to them) journalist not to publish something that was apparently such exciting news that you, bound by confidentiality, simply couldnt keep quiet about it. Or at least, I can. The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) I agree with you that its ok for OP to feel resentful (at least in the short-run)! She should have told her this is serious and Im going to have to report you. Then at least OP could have avoided the slack room full of journalists escalation. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. That brings us to your questions. Maybe you let them know more then they should even without meaning too? But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. If I know that Senator Y is releasing a health care plan on Monday that would require mandatory surgery for every American, and he has bipartisan support for it, thats a much more specific news tip, and Id rather my friend just not tell me and save me the heartburn. You are almost certainly an at-will employee so you can be discharged at anytime and for any reason or even no reason at all. and that person did what they were told to do and reported it. Thats the real clincher here for me) and on a personal level with management your position is one of trust and you violated the basis of your work. If *you* got that carried away, you cant guarantee that she wont, either. Because a) LW broke confidentiality. @MarkAmery OP said themselves that what they sent was 'client confidential information' but ruled out trade secrets/IP being involved. If you can trust someone, you can trust them, journalist or not. It only takes a minute to sign up. Yeah, I think CA meant, the message was only sent to the friend/journalist, but you dont know where she opened it: if shes in an open newsroom or something, someone could have seen it on her screen over her shoulder. I get why maintaining confidentiality is important, and I understand why the OP was wrong in this particular situation, but balance is also needed. You dont get a warning for things like that. But they took confidentiality very seriously, and I signed an extremely ironclad NDA, so I never told anyone any of the interesting tidbits I found out about from working there.