Email Forwarding: Easy to do but not Always Smart to do
Quick Answer
Email forwarding is technically simple but carries real risks. Forwarded messages are copyright-protected by their authors at creation, so redistributing them can create legal exposure depending on content, recipient, and frequency. Auto-forwarding amplifies the problem: without human review, sensitive or regulated information (patient records, student data, research, internal documents) can leak to personal accounts on unsecured devices, which is why universities and other institutions formally warn against it. Financial fiduciaries face a third risk; under a 2019 US Supreme Court ruling, the SEC can discipline individuals for disseminating misstatements made by others, and disseminating in this context includes forwarding. DuoCircle offers email forwarding with unlimited users, unlimited aliases, and TLS encryption, but the warning still applies: inspect what you forward.
At DuoCircle, we offer email forwarding. We understand that at this point email forwarding is more or less a commodity. Oh sure, you want your email forwarding to come with advanced features like forwarding groups, spam/virus protection and seamless integration into your email service. But, just because email forwarding is easy to do, doesn’t mean it’s always smart to do.
As things turn out, forwarding emails can get you in a lot of trouble if you’re not careful. First, there are copyright issues to consider. According to an article on Net M@nners, “Technically, all emails are naturally copyright protected by the author upon creation. Depending on what you are forwarding, to who, where and how often could cause legal issues…” Yikes.
The second issue occurs when you use auto-forwarding, which is just email forwarding done without any human intervention. This is the service that DuoCircle provides. The problem here is, without inspecting the email, you may be forwarding personal or sensitive information. This is one of the concerns that UT San Antonio has. That’s why they put out a notice stating, “Auto-forwarding of university email to a personal email account may run the risk of email with sensitive information (patient, student, personal, research) being sent to an unsecured computer outside the university.” It’s something you have to be aware of.
If that isn’t bad enough, forwarding an email can actually get you into legal hot water based on a recent Supreme Court ruling if you’re a financial fiduciary. According to an article on Law.com, “In March 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the SEC may discipline an individual for disseminating misstatements made by someone else.” In this case, “disseminating” means email forwarding.
If you need email forwarding with unlimited users, unlimited email aliases and TLS encryption, at super affordable prices, head on over to DuoCircle.com. But if you do, don’t just blindly forward those emails. You’ve been warned.
General Manager
General Manager at DuoCircle. Product strategy and commercial lead across the email security portfolio.
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