Employee Abuse Of Customer Data?

Are your employees abusing your organization's customer data? Some companies never know. But a recent article in The New York Times suggests that a growing number of employees are misusing data regarding their employers' customers by taking names and addresses from their companies' databases for their own purposes, such as advertising a house for sale or announcing a new career or business venture. In one example that the Times reported, a former sales employee from Crate & Barrel copied customer addresses from company records to which he mailed cards announcing his new career in residential real estate.

"Corporate policies often focus only on how the business can use confidential customer data," notes Hughes & Luce Outsourcing & Technology partner Andre' Brunel. "But with an increasing number of employees getting access to that kind of information, companies should ensure through privacy policies and confidentiality agreements not only that the business limits how it uses confidential customer data, but also that its employees are educated about and restricted from the misuse of business contact information."

This is especially true in light of the likelihood of increased federal regulation of unsolicited e-mail advertising (i.e., spam e-mail). At least two anti-spam bills are pending in Congress -- S. 620 and H.R. 718 -- which would make punishable by up to $11,000 per occurrence sending commercial e-mail with deceptive headers or subject lines, or e-mail that fails offer recipients the choice of opting out of receiving further communications. If these bills pass, employees who abuse a company's customer data may increase their employer's liability for spam e-mail, and damage valuable customer relationships.