I’ve read two examples recently where Outlook AutoComplete has been disabled; one a borough council and the other a large financial institution. In both cases this action has been a reaction to their users sending information externally to the wrong recipients. No hint of anything suspicious or any malicious motives here, just a simple mistake and away the email goes. I don’t believe the answer to this is simply turning AutoComplete off; after I’ve finished typing this, I’ll be using AutoComplete to send it off to a colleague… carefully.
Instead of disabling AutoComplete, why not give your users another option? How about before they press the Send button, they choose what type of email they’re writing? Once we know what type of email they’re writing, let’s check everyone on the recipient list should be receiving the email, and let’s do it right there and then at the point of sending it (and yes I can see your Cc’s and Bcc’s).
Recipient clearance checking isn’t anything new, we’ve been doing it for years. Checking the email domain for recipients, checking the originator should be sending the email, checking AD (Active Directory) attributes and using dynamic clearances, checking the number of recipients, the subject length, the presence of Cc and Bcc recipients – the list goes on!
An additional benefit of a Data Classification solution is the ability to check all aspects of an email before sending it, and in turn educate your users right there and then. You can have a look at Email Classifier in action now and see how you can keep the productivity benefits AutoComplete offers, whilst removing the risk of that misaddressed email.