When E-avesdropping Tanks Your Meeting
Leaks from the presidential election make latest case for electronic security
By MARSHALL KRANTZ
If Mitt Romney loses the presidential election, many think a secretly recorded video that was almost certainly made by a catering staffer at a private fundraising event held last May, could share much of the blame.
In that video, the Republican nominee disparaged the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes, saying, “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
The video created a firestorm of negative publicity when it first surfaced in September, and it was a hot topic of the second presidential debate, held Wednesday at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, N.Y.
Romney’s video—and President Barack Obama’s secretly recorded comments in 2008 that some conservatives “cling to guns or religion”—dramatically illustrate how in the digital age discussions at events that are considered private can easily become public, with highly embarrassing consequences.
The possibility of just such an embarrassment, while not quite rattling corporate cages to the same extent, has captured the attention of company executives and meeting planners, according to security and event industry professionals.
As a result, they say, groups are intensifying their efforts to curtail—or at least contend with—the presence of cell phones and other electronic recording devices in meetings where sensitive information is discussed.
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Tips for Planners
Event industry professionals focused on information security offer the following tips:
- Post signs, and make announcements, warning attendees that the meeting will cover confidential information and that they should not disclose the information without authorization.
- Instruct attendees not to discuss any business outside of designated meeting rooms, as other rooms are vulnerable to eavesdropping; and not to discuss business over hotel telephones or analog cell phones.
- Instruct attendees not to leave any proprietary information unattended in their sleeping rooms, including luggage and electronic devices, as well as the meeting room.
- Ensure sufficient sound insulation between the meeting room walls and adjoining spaces. Consider requiring that any area on the other side of air walls from the group's space be left empty.
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