Workplace E-mail, IM Survey reveals risks.Despite the fact that e-mail and instant messages are primary sources of evidence, many companies remain largely unprepared to manage their inherent risks, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the "2004 Workplace E-mail and Instant Messaging Exchanging text messages in real time between two or more people logged into a particular instant messaging (IM) service. Instant messaging is more interactive than e-mail because messages are sent immediately, whereas e-mail messages can be queued up in a mail server for seconds or Survey" conducted by the American Management Association (AMA (Automatic Message Accounting) The recording and reporting of telephone calls within a telephone system. It includes the calling and called parties and start and stop times of the call. ) and The ePolicy Institute. The survey of 840 firms revealed that one in every five U.S. companies (20 percent) has had employee e-mail subpoenaed in the course of a lawsuit or regulatory investigation, up from 14 percent in 2003. Another 13 percent have battled workplace lawsuits triggered by employee e-mail. According to the survey, 42 percent of respondents perform a job function that is governed by government or industry regulations. Fully 43 percent of those regulated employees either do not adhere to adhere to verb 1. follow, keep, maintain, respect, observe, be true, fulfil, obey, heed, keep to, abide by, be loyal, mind, be constant, be faithful 2. regulatory requirements Regulatory requirements are part of the process of drug discovery and drug development. Regulatory requirements describe what is necessary for a new drug to be approved for marketing in any particular country. governing e-mail retention or are unsure if they are in compliance. For firms in regulated industries, the failure to properly retain e-mail and IM can--and regularly does--lead to six-figure fines, criminal charges, civil lawsuits, and damaging publicity. "Most alarming is the business community's failure to retain e-mail and instant messages according to written retention and deletion deletion /de·le·tion/ (de-le´shun) in genetics, loss of genetic material from a chromosome. de·le·tion n. Loss, as from mutation, of one or more nucleotides from a chromosome. policies," says Nancy Flynn, director of The ePolicy Institute. "Only 6 percent of organizations retain and archive IM business records, and only 35 percent have an e-mail retention policy in place--just 1 percent more than in 2003." According to Flynn, companies' failure to properly retain e-mail and instant messages reflects their failure to educate employees about e-mail and IM risks, rules, and policies. "The fact that 37 percent of respondents do not know or are unsure about the difference between an electronic business record that must be retained vs. an insignificant message that may be deleted suggests that employers are dropping the ball when it comes to effectively managing e-mail and IM use," says Flynn. In 2004, 54 percent of respondents said their organizations conduct e-mail policy training, a 6 percent increase over the 48 percent reported in 2003. While companies have been slow to put e-mail and IM retention and deletion policies into place, 79 percent have implemented a written e-mail policy. On the other hand, the survey reveals that only 20 percent have adopted a policy governing IM use and content. Only 11 percent of organizations surveyed said they use IM gateway/ management software to monitor, purge To eliminate or delete. , retain, and control IM risks and use. With 31 percent of employees using IM at the office and 78 percent of those users downloading free IM software from the Internet, organizations are vulnerable to a growing array of IM-related legal, compliance, productivity, and security threats, Flynn says. Top 10 Information Management Concerns 1. IT and business alignment 2. Retaining IT professionals 3. Security and privacy 4. IT strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. 5. Speed and agility 6. Government regulation 7. Complexity reduction 8. (tie) IT governance 8. (tie) Information architecture 10. Business process reengineering See reengineering. Source: Survey of nearly 300 firms conducted by The Society for Information Management |
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