Badpuppy Gay Today |
Monday, 26 January 1998 |
When AOL members logged on Saturday, January 23, they were greeted with a message from Chairman and CEO Steve Case. This marks the first time since Navyman McVeigh's privacy was compromised last September that this observer has seen AOL acknowledge the Tim McVeigh scandal to its own members on its own service. While Mr. Case acknowledges that AOL's actions in this case "compromised the privacy of one of our members," he fails to mention that AOL also compromised that member's 17-year career, and his ailing mother's only means of support. Mr. Case indicates a number of additional steps have been taken to ensure member privacy in the future, but made no mention of what, if anything, AOL is doing to ensure that one particular member does not lose his livelihood. Mr. Case's letter follows January 23, 1998 Dear Members, For more than a decade, we have been working hard to build an interactive medium we can all be proud of. We have always recognized that privacy was an absolutely central building block for this medium, so from day one we've taken steps to build a secure environment that our members can trust. We handle over one million calls each week in our customer service centers, and we protect the privacy of our members with great care and with stringent rules. Our member services representatives understand the importance of not disclosing any account information to anyone who is not the verified account holder. The verification process is sophisticated, and our policies are effective, clear and well communicated to all of our employees. So it is with regret that we recently learned about an incident that compromised the privacy of one of our members, a Navy sailor. A member services representative received a call from somebody who later turned out to be a Navy investigator but called himself a friend of the member. The caller asked us to confirm that a screen name that was on something he had received was the AOL member's. Our employee should have refused to do this. Unfortunately, he did confirm the member's identity to the caller. As we've said publicly, this should not have happened, and we deeply regret it. After a thorough review, we've confirmed this was a matter of human error. Our representative understood our privacy policies and procedures, but made a mistake -- a mistake for which we take complete responsibility. In light of this incident, we are taking additional steps to protect the privacy of our members. First, we are reinforcing the existing policies and procedures with additional employee training, including the use of case studies to highlight unusual facts and circumstances that member services representatives should know how to respond to. Second, we'll test our employees on their understanding of these policies and procedures. Third, we have communicated to our member services representatives the importance of not "confirming" a member's personal account information, even to that member's friends and family. Fourth, all representatives will be required to acknowledge in writing that they understand AOL's privacy policies on a regular basis. Finally, we will do everything possible to ensure that government agencies follow the law in seeking information about our members. AOL's commitment to protecting the privacy of our members is stronger than ever. We will keep working to make AOL a service you can rely on, and this medium something we can, indeed, all be proud of. Regards, Steve Case Additional Information Received : A form letter received from AOL arrived in Washington D.C.'s Wired Strategies offices for John Aravosis in response to his complaint to the online company about the Timothy McVeigh scandal. It seems to mimic AOL's written statement to the press, but does use harsher language about the implications for the Net: "When the Navy pursues private information from Internet companies in order to deprive a person of his or her job, it undermines essential individual rights and threatens the future of this promising new medium." In addition, the letter does imply that more important than Tim's losing his career is the fact that AOL got duped. Is that the most empathetic spin they could put out there? Dear [subscriber name here], I am responding to your letter on behalf of Steve Case. Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We appreciate your thoughts about the U.S. Navy's investigation of Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy McVeigh. We want to reassure you how strongly AOL is opposed to preventing the abuse of private information by the government or anyone else. We absolutely understand how important it is to protect such information and earn the trust of our members. After completing a review of AOL's role in the U.S. Navy's investigation, we have determined: 1. The Navy deliberately ignored both Federal law and well-established procedures for handling government inquiries about AOL members. The Navy investigator who telephoned AOL did not identify himself properly nor did he reveal the true purpose of his call. 2. The investigator misled our representative into confirming information which the Navy already possessed about Senior Chief McVeigh -- both by failing to disclose his identity and by portraying himself as friend or acquaintance of Senior Chief McVeigh's. 3. Nevertheless, our Member Services representative did confirm information presented to him by the Navy. This clearly should not have happened, and we regret it. When the Navy pursues private information from Internet companies in order to deprive a person of his or her job, it undermines essential individual rights and threatens the future of this promising new medium. We have sent letters both to the Navy and Department of Defense to protest their conduct in this investigation and insist that they use proper legal procedures in the future. But more important to both you and us, AOL's privacy policies and procedures were circumvented in this matter. We have reviewed these policies and procedures, and we already are putting new measures into place to reinforce to our Member Services representatives how important it is for them to protect our members' privacy and train them to recognize deceptions like the one we saw in this case. Again, thank you for your e-mail. We hope that this response has helped clarify both the situation and what we are doing about it. Please feel free to contact us with further questions or thoughts. I am responding to your letter on behalf of Steve Case. Thank you for taking the time to write to us. Sincerely, Phyllis S. |
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