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Did Lost Email Lose the Presidency?

Photo credit C-SPAN.org Did Lost Email Lose Hillary the Presidency? By Paul Coyle – Waterford Technologies While the world reconciles itself to

Photo credit C-SPAN.org

Did Lost Email Lose Hillary the Presidency?

By Paul Coyle – Waterford Technologies

While the world reconciles itself to the unexpected outcome of the US presidential election this week, the questions about why this unpredicted upset came about are already flooding our newsfeeds across all media. With overwhelming betting odds on a Clinton victory on the day of the actual election, it was certainly an outcome that almost nobody could foresee across the globe.

Many theories will come out of the autopsy of her presidential bid and almost certainly the cause was multifaceted but one element that chimes with our customer base in Waterford Technologies is the potential diminishing of trust and credibility from the loss of email and this scandal has dogged the entire lifetime of what looked to be a certain campaign victory right up to voting day.

You don’t have to be a high stakes presidential candidate to experience a very damaging loss of reputation, possible legal action and a loss of trust from your customers and stakeholders. Losing important email – intentionally or not – has consequences.

Email Loss – The Legal Ramifications

The US laws are clear in relation to government email policy:

“In 2008, The US government published rules for email storage which states that every government email system is supposed to ‘permit easy and timely retrieval’ and all work emails are supposed to be permanently preserved. Additionally, in the case of a cabinet secretary, permanent records are to be sent to the department’s Records Service Center ‘at the end of the Secretary’s tenure or sooner if necessary’ for safekeeping.” (The Washington Post, 3/27/2016)

With a veritable raft of differing legislation in place across the US, EMEA and APAC, not to mention different rules for industry verticals, keeping email compliance can prove a considerable challenge –even with the best intentions.

If Hillary Clinton had MailMeter installed on her server, there would be no doubt either way of the path the emails had taken and maybe America would be looking at a totally different outcome this week.

Remove Uncertainty with MailMeter

Organizations find MailMeter Investigate an invaluable resource when faced with legal issues and disputes. Some regular issues that MailMeter helps to resolve include:

E-Discovery and Legal Research: Preparing to go to court, responding to opposing counsel discovery requests and researching to avoid a lawsuit or dismiss an action.

Internal Investigations: A manager requesting to see email from one or more employees due to suspicions of misbehaviour or improper activity. HR can get evidence for employee discipline and dismissals, and they can get to the truth for claims of harassment and discrimination (and just as easily defend against false email claims).

Knowledge Transfer: Finding specific information from former employees or previous customer interactions to support current business.

Quickly and easily meet eDiscovery, Compliance and FOI Requests

More and more organizations are receiving discovery requests for employee email. Companies are required to comply with regulations that make past emails accessible for legal reasons. The MailMeter Investigate module offers an efficient email storage and retrieval solution that helps companies to abide by government regulations such as FOI, GLBA, Data Protection Act and Basel II.

The regulations usually require email to be stored in a tamper-proof system, an easily accessible location, and reports to be delivered within 24 hours. MailMeter helps your company to meet regulatory requirements by providing:

  • Secure storage
  • Easy retrieval mechanism
  • Visible control system
  • Audit trails to manage medical, financial or other email records

Find out More about MailMeter

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