Roane State Community College

This guideline covers email sent by employees (faculty and staff) of Roane State Community College.

Faculty and Staff

1. What is a disclaimer?
   Email disclaimers are statements that are either prepended or appended to email. They are usually statements of a legal nature.¹
2. Why would you need a disclaimer?
   Most of the emails sent by Roane State Community College employees do not contain confidential information. In the state of Tennessee all email is considered to be a “public record” and requires no confidentiality disclaimer. While there is some debate in the legal community about the protection these disclaimers add, most agree that it is prudent to include them when confidential information is being sent. Include a disclaimer on your outgoing email:
   1. If your email contains confidential or privileged information; or
   2. In case email is accidentally sent to someone you did not intend to receive the email.
3. Confidentiality Disclaimer
   Specific offices may have a need to transmit confidential information as part of the duties of that office. Therefore, in offices where you may be required to transmit confidential or privileged information and your email contains such information, please include the following statement:
   
   NOTE: This email may contain PRIVILEGED and/or CONFIDENTIAL information and is intended solely for the use of the specific individual(s) or entity to which it is addressed. If you have received this email in error, please delete it and immediately notify the sender named above by reply email. If you are not the intended recipient of this email, you are hereby notified that any unauthorized use, dissemination or copying of this email or the information contained in it or attached to it is strictly prohibited.
4. Unintended Recipients Disclaimer
   From time to time email may be accidentally sent to a recipient who is not intended to receive the message. A disclaimer for unintended recipients is “always appropriate”². All email sent by Roane State Community College employees should include the following unintended recipient disclaimer:
   
   This email is intended for the addressee and may contain privileged information. If you are not the addressee you are not permitted to use or copy this email or its attachments nor may you disclose the same to any third party. If this has been sent to you in error please delete the email and notify us by replying to this email immediately.

___________________________

¹ Source – emaildisclaimers.com

² Source – Kathy Crisp, Associate General Counsel, Tennessee Board of Regents