Email Disclaimers

If you use email with any frequency at all you are from time to time bound to get an email with the following disclaimer attached to the end or something very much like it.

"IMPORTANT NOTICE: This e-mail is meant only for the use of the intended recipient. It may contain confidential information which is legally privileged or otherwise protected by law. If you received this e-mail in error or from someone who was not authorized to send it to you, you are strictly prohibited from reviewing, using, disseminating, distributing or copying the e-mail. PLEASE NOTIFY US IMMEDIATELY OF THE ERROR BY RETURN E-MAIL AND DELETE THIS MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM. Thank you for your cooperation."

Now who hasn't' at least once sent an email to the wrong person by mistake? But do these disclaimers mean anything? If one is careless enough to send really important information to the wrong people will such a disclaimer protect you from the consequences of say a law suit or at least major embarrassment? However these warnings make it sound like it's the receiver's fault for getting something that did not want and was not intended for them. I find these disclaimers tolerable more or less but useless in a one to one email but they really are absurd when people attach them to multiple emails or posts to discussion groups, news groups, bulletin boards and listservs. When someone intentionally sends out an email to hundreds if not thousands of people should they not double and triple check to make sure that no confidential or legally privileged information protected by law is included by mistake?

However in my profession, the mental health profession, some of my colleagues do this with alarming frequency. They too often talk about their patients on open discussion groups and think that these disclaimers somehow protect their client's confidentiality. Teenagers using MySpace show more common sense.

Let's take a closer look at these disclaimers.

The disclaimers usually say, the email may contain confidential information which is legally privileged or otherwise protected by law.

Well if it contains confidential or privileged information why would anyone send out such information in an unsecured non encrypted email? Email is notoriously not private. Copies are left all over the place including the servers of both sender and receiver. At least it should be encrypted. If the information was protected by law, who violated the law by being careless and sending it out to people with no need to know?

It also says that you are strictly prohibited from reviewing, using etc etc.

But unless you "review it" or read it , how on earth do you know it's not for you and that it contains important confidential or privileged information?

Next the rocket scientist who send you this information by mistake wants you to notify them by return mail. But would that not simply increase the chances of making yet another mistake and you might send it to someone else by in error compounding the problem? And even if you return it to the rightful sender there are now at least two more copies floating around on yours and the original senders server, computer etc. . Simply ignoring it might be the least problematic situation in a mess that was not your doing in the first place.

These disclaimers are more than likely the idea of some attorney in the legal department of some organization. I suppose it is or should be a reminder that the internet is not private and nothing should be sent out over the internet without using some common sense. But common sense is not always common. One sees these disclaimers far more frequently when people are employed by organizations. Perhaps, just perhaps these organizations should spend a little time investigating just how much of their employees time is spent in discussion groups and not doing what they are being paid to do.

I frankly doubt these declaimers do much good.

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