The Risks Associated With Email
Unfortunately it is not all good news when it comes to email, and paradoxically many of the advantages listed in the previous section are also largely responsible for the considerable risks associated with its use.
Its ubiquity and flexibility mean that email is routinely used for an astonishingly wide variety of purposes, some of which are outlined in the table below
Table below - Range of functions email is regularly used for
| Sharing information | Sharing documents | Asking questions |
| Requesting information | Planning social events | Agreeing a course of action |
| Sharing jokes/gossip | Holding discussions | Swapping contacts |
| Planning business meetings | Confirming agreements | Assigning tasks |
This mixture of formal and informal, business and social, serious and frivolous is a dangerous mix. The eyes of the law may be unable or unwilling to distinguish between them leaving every single email sent or held by your institution as part of its auditable information holdings. With all colleges and universities now subject to the Freedom of Information Act the question staff need to ask themselves is: 'would I be happy for the contents of my email to be printed in the local newspaper'? The answer is likely to be a resounding 'no'. This is because people have become accustomed to treating emails as ephemeral without regard for the evidential trail they leave behind. There are countless examples of users who have fallen into this trap only to find their flippant, off the cuff remarks used against them as evidence of libel, discrimination or abuse.
Nor is this a risk faced solely by the individual staff concerned. The institution itself may well find itself liable for the transgressions of its staff - especially if it is unable to demonstrate that it is taking an active approach to encouraging good practice and managing email use.
The ease of email creation and distribution, combined with the sheer volume of messages that staff are expected to deal with also leads to inevitable problems. Messages containing sensitive content are all too easily sent to the wrong person who just happens to share a similar name to the intended recipient, whilst confidential information is often to be found inadvertently buried at the bottom of a long chain of forwarded messages.
Without regular, ongoing management by the user their email account will rapidly become an untamed and apparently untameable monster. Inboxes containing literally thousands of messages are not uncommon and many people have developed a way of working which relies on the kaleidoscope of information their inbox contains as an apparently indispensable 'electronic memory'. Whilst there may be some value to the user in this approach (though probably less than they imagine) it also results in considerable costs and risks to the institution. As well as the dangers resulting from inadvertently keeping 'dangerous' information, it is also often the case that information of value to a number of functions within the institution remains locked away within this inaccessible data silo and reliant on the vagaries of individual practice for survival.
