FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 April 2003

Automating organisations' Privacy Act Compliance

MailGuard simplifies both internal and external email compliance associated with amendments to Privacy Act

MailGuard, Australia's first and leading provider of outsourced email anti-virus, anti-spam and content filtering solutions, has, for the last 12 months, assisted its customers with meeting compliance requirements based on the new amendments to the Privacy Act 2001 for both internal and external email privacy management.

The introduction of the new legislation 12 months ago requires organisations that receive email correspondence, to distribute a copy of their privacy statement to every person that sends an email to a member of the organisation from outside of the company.

If the email is forwarded to another person, without the originator having received the organisation's privacy statement - then the company may be in breach of the sending party's privacy, having distributed the sender's information and email address.

Additionally, organisations are required to have an email privacy policy in place that all internal users receive and agree to. On request, organisations need to provide their users with details of what is logged of their users' email and internet usage.

Sara Dexter, of the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA), the professional body representing the recruitment industry in Australia and New Zealand, believes the service is essential to her organisation in meeting its ongoing privacy requirements. Dexter is delighted with the automated service provided by MailGuard.

"Being a professional body whose main form of communication is email, the RCSA is very conscious of its need to safeguard itself and to set the standard for privacy compliance industry wide," says Dexter. "With the new MailGuard privacy management service we have the confidence that we are achieving this comprehensively."

Other customers using MailGuard's email privacy management service include the AFL, MGH Financials, Australian Retail Association and Electrolux.

"Now that it is no longer a hot topic, there is no doubt that organisations are getting somewhat lax in their duty to comply with email privacy requirements," says Andrew Johnson, MailGuard's Marketing Director. "It shouldn't be forgotten that the privacy laws are being enforced through regular checks and penalties and could potentially leave organisations vulnerable to legal recourse."

Companies using the MailGuard service select when they would like their privacy policy sent to employees and correspondents either monthly, quarterly or annually. The system allows the organisation to upload its email privacy policy directly into MailGuard. Administrators simply log into their MailGuard Management Console and produce an employee report based on their email usage.

"If a member of staff requests a copy of the information that you have logged on them, you must provide it," said Johnson. "MailGuard makes this process simple by allowing you to select the person's email address, and then clicking the 'send' button will email all of the logs that MailGuard has stored on that individual user's email and statistics."

"Every person that sends emails to your organisation must also be made aware of your company's privacy statement," said Johnson. "This needs to be sent to each of them - but not every time they send an email in, as this becomes annoying and unworkable. Our service ensures that the first time a person sends email to a company he or she will receive a copy of that company's privacy statement direct from MailGuard. Our automated system then registers that this person has received the statement and is tagged to receive no further privacy statement for a pre-determined period of time [one or three months]."

MailGuard's service intelligently automates the process of distributing a company's email privacy statement to people sending email into that company, while concurrently protecting them from viruses and inappropriate content. In addition, every email that leaves an organisation has the option of including a customisable footer/disclaimer.

From $2.95 per user per month, MailGuard provides SMEs protection against sophisticated viruses and spam as well as offering content filtering 24 hours per day. The company is saving thousands of dollars weekly for hundreds of Australian organisations by scanning emails at the Internet before they arrive at companies' networks.

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Issued by Rivers of Communication
On behalf of MailGuard

Media enquiries
Craig McDonald, Director of Strategy, MailGuard, tel: +61 3 9694 4444
Dolores Diez, Rivers of Communication, tel: +61 3 9572 4552 / 0417 330 881
email: dolores@riversofcom.com