|
Office technology makes it
much easier for workers to steal important information
from their employers. Workers are not just stealing
pencils anymore.
Research into intellectual
property theft found that almost
70% of people have stolen key information
from work.
The most pilfered items include
e-mail address books, customer databases as well as
proposals and presentations.
Many of those questioned said
they used office e-mail to get the stolen information
off company premises.
Lost prospects
Most of those stealing important
information said they did so when they were leaving a
firm to take up a new job.
The majority of those questioned,
72%, had no ethical
problems stealing information to help them in a new
post. Most, 58%,
thought that, in moral terms, it ranked with
exaggerating insurance claims. The surprising thing is
the level to which people believe this is acceptable.
Many think that they are entitled to take information
with them because they had helped win customers and
create databases of sales leads.
Over 80%
of those surveyed said this input justified their theft.
The classic case is in sales
environments where the contacts database is taken from
one company to another even if it is not relevant to
that business.
The survey found that
30% of people had
stolen a contact database when they left an employer.
Many of those stealing from
companies send the purloined data to their personal
e-mail account held at home or on the web. A small
number, 21%, burned
the information onto CDs.
The survey also revealed some
gender biases. Women were 20%
more likely to think that taking key documents and files
was acceptable but men were 28%
more likely to go through with the theft.
If you're involved in data, it's
inevitable that at some time it will be misused or
suspicions will arise over who misappropriated it. |
