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 fund-raising event held last May in Boca Raton, Fla., 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.
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.
World of Spycraft
“There’s been a big change in business meetings,” says Kevin D. Murray, principal of Murray Associates, a specialist in business counterespionage (www.spybusters.com). “Security is not a specialty anymore. If you’re going off-site, you ask, ‘What’s the security component?’ Before, people would ask, ‘Who’s the band?’”
Murray places groups’ heightened sense of security in the context of two global phenomena going back more than a decade: organized terrorism against developed countries, beginning with the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks in the U.S.; and fiercer business competition, in which industrial espionage is not only acceptable for some countries and companies, but expected, some would argue.
However, the increased concern about the confidentiality of conversations at meetings really took hold more recently, according to Murray, as pocket recording devices became increasingly ubiquitous and electronic surveillance equipment became easily available online.
“The idea of an industrial spy is archaic,” Murray contends. “If you go back 10 or 20 years, you’d have to know somebody special or spend a thousand dollars on equipment. Now, it’s a whole new world; you can buy things on eBay for under a hundred bucks. Anybody can be an industrial spy.
“Asking people to check their cell phones for off-site meetings is relatively new—in the past three years,” Murray adds, “but they are still reluctant to require it at board meetings; they’re afraid of making people feel bad.”
Ken Wheatley, chief security officer for Sony Electronics in the U.S., agrees about the heightened corporate concern over keeping discussions at events confidential.
“There’s no question that with the proliferation of smart phones and other pocket devices, there’s more possibility of exposure, and so companies are absolutely cognizant of that fact,” Wheatley says. “If the event and potential exposure warrant it, then you have to be proactive to mitigate that exposure.
“We have gone so far as to collect electronic devices before people enter the meeting space,” Wheatley adds, although not so far as to subject attendees to physical searches. “It’s uncomfortable to tell them you’re going to collect their devices, but it’s their choice. In incidences when we’ve done that, some people have chosen not to participate.”
A former FBI agent, Wheatley points out that the Secret Service, which accompanies Romney, undoubtedly secured the area against weapons, but they probably would have allowed people who had been screened to keep their mobile devices.
At the Romney fundraiser, the static camera appears to be placed on a serving table, which dominates the foreground, with seated guests and the candidate in the background, thus suggesting that a catering worker recorded the video that is now available on YouTube.
Legal Safeguards for Groups
While groups—particularly those in tech, pharma and financial services—focus on confidentiality from their attendees, often requiring that they sign non-disclosure agreements, many have paid less legal attention than perhaps they should to the potential threat from those who work the events, according to Joshua Grimes, an attorney specializing in event contracting (www.grimeslaw.org).
“I’m not sure that most meetings cover confidentiality with suppliers that have staff in proximity to an event where they might learn proprietary information,” Grimes says. “But this is a concern that should be given proper thought.”
Grimes recommends that groups contractually require the venue and other suppliers to disclose no information from the meeting without written consent.
“In appropriate circumstances,” Grimes advises, “demand that any employee of a vendor, supplier or contractor accessing the event be required to leave his or her cell phone outside the meeting rooms, and make the vendor or supplier responsible for taking steps to ensure that this requirement is enforced.”
But it is often impossible to determine who exactly disclosed confidential information, which may explain the pushback planners might get from suppliers.
“Facilities or other venues will not accept responsibility for disclosure of what goes on in meetings,” says meetings industry attorney James Goldberg (www.assnlaw.com). “They will argue that the meetings are within the control of the group, not the venue.”
And when it comes to control, the ultimate control remains with the speakers. If they don’t say or do something embarrassing, then no embarrassing video of them can surface.
Brian Palmer, president of the National Speakers Bureau (www.nationalspeakers.com), says that if Romney’s 47 percent remark turns out to be his undoing, then “people will be a great deal more cautious” than they already are.
“I’m confident that it changes speakers’ presentations, because they know there’s a very good chance that what they say will be recorded,” Palmer says. “Speakers have brought that up, not a lot, but they say, ‘I probably have to change my stories or names because there’s a good chance it might be broadcast.’
“But it’s those interesting details that make a presentation special,” he adds. “People don’t hire speakers to give a plain vanilla speech.”
It may be safe to say, however, that attendees can look forward to a little more plain vanilla with the presentations they consume at events, especially in off-the-cuff remarks, no matter which way the election goes.
Marshall Krantz has been writing for meetings industry publications for more than 15 years.
