Everyday an employee will send out and receive dozens of emails; most of them trivial and inconsequential. During her time as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton too used her email for communication purposes, although that is where the similarities end. Whilst your average employees might send out an email every so often containing valuable and highly confidential content, every email coming from the Secretary of State’s desk is valuable, to her opposition at home and abroad, and of course the press.
Clinton’s emails from her time as Secretary of State have become something of a nuisance for the presidential hopeful over the course of her 2016 campaign. Clinton has been criticized for using a private email server during her time as Secretary from 2009-2013, using the server in some instances to send out and receive confidential information. Clinton had stated that no classified information had been sent or received on her private server however the State Department has since deemed that 125 emails contain classified information.
Thousands of Clinton’s emails have now been released to the public and she has turned over all work related emails to the State Department.
Clinton has not formally apologized and has tried to play down the issue as much as possible, continuing to insist that she did not break any State Department rules. This is hardly surprising considering Clinton is in the middle of a unpredictable presidential nomination race; she is currently behind her closest rival Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire polls, a key state in the primary nominations.
Clinton has repeatedly told the press that her decision to use a private server for her emails was simply a matter of convenience, others naturally have speculated otherwise believing that Clinton was determined to have complete oversight over all her communications.
However, Clinton’s attempts to ignore the issue have not quietened her opposition who continue to argue her irresponsible decision to use a personal email server could have led to a national security crisis if her email account was hacked.
Archiving Emails Correctly can lead to Record Management Gains :
Archiving emails is incredibly important for record and information management with employees regularly transferring data via email. As aforementioned a lot of the information that is passed on using email is unimportant but this does not necessarily mean it should not be retained. Businesses that chose not to implement an effective email archiving system and ignore the confidentiality risks emails pose put themselves in danger of being faced with legal challenges and criminal investigations in the future, as Hilary Clinton has recently learned.
Such legal procedures can be costly and can harm a businesses’ repute with clients who will no longer trust employees to prioritize the security of their information.
What’s more often employees are limited by inbox quotas therefore they will frequently have to go through their inbox and delete some emails they deem less important to make room for incoming mail. Often this lead to employees accidentally deleting data that really should be kept. With email archiving all employee emails will be backed up so there is no need for employees to make a choice between keeping some emails and removing others.
Businesses can lose a lot of data if emails are not appropriately archived; for instance employees will often dispose of all their emails once they leave a business whilst other employees delete emails en masse on a regular basis.
Most businesses depend on online service providers for their email usage; this means that for backup copies of this lost data they have to rely on an external company with which they have no links with whatsoever. If a business archives its emails using a data storage partner or reliable software it gains back control over its’ emails and data. A business can recall those lost emails when it needs them using its own software or a third party storage provider with whom it will have a trusting partnership.
Hilary Clinton’s mismanagement of her emails has led to her losing all control of those emails; it seems likely that the State Department will continue to publish her emails in batches. An effective email archiving system enables businesses to backup and retain full control over their emails.[su_box title=”About Secure Data Management” style=”noise” box_color=”#336588″]
Secure Data Management Ltd (SDM) is an independently owned company which specialises in providing offsite document storage to some of the UK’s most well known brands. Based in London and Swindon, we have over 25 years experience in providing a premium offsite document storage service for our clients. Secure Data Management’s services include offsite document storage, scanning and designing archival management systems. (SDM) ethos is to meet client’s expectations 100% of the time.[/su_box]
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