How prevent recipient from seeing Categories assigned to email?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SecurityMinded
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SecurityMinded

I *JUST LEARNED* that recipients of emails I send can see the category(s) I
assigned to the email! This is freaking me out!

Imagine I am a psychologist. I create a category for each client. The
category formula is:

Last, First Condition First Visit Date

e.g.

Rodriguez, Alex DRUG ABUSE 4/1/2003
Baldwin, Alec ANGER MNGT 5/3/2006
Ryder, Winona KLEPTOMANIA 11/21/2003

Every time I make an appointment or task, I assign it to the client via the
Category in Outlook 2003.

BUT...If I send an email and want to assign a category, EVERY RECIPIENT SEES
the category(s) in the Keywords header. How do I NOT have this happen?!

e.g. if I send an email to a counseling list serve, but assign a category(s)
because it relates to a client, everyone will see the client's name,
condition,and when they started seeing me.

How to prevent this? Is there an answer?

I know that bcc's are not seen by others. How can one make 'Categories' like
that?
 
I know that Outlook 2007 has inbox rules that let you clear the categories
at time of receive or send of a message. I don't believe this feature
exists in earlier versions, but its worth a peek to be sure.
 
NOTE: microsoft.public.security was removed from my reply (as this is an
issue of how the user chooses to use the product).

SecurityMinded wrote:

I *JUST LEARNED* that recipients of emails I send can see the
category(s) I assigned to the email! This is freaking me out!
Imagine I am a psychologist. I create a category for each client. The
category formula is:

Last, First Condition First Visit Date

e.g.: Rodriguez, Alex DRUG ABUSE 4/1/2003
Baldwin, Alec ANGER MNGT 5/3/2006
Ryder, Winona KLEPTOMANIA 11/21/2003

Every time I make an appointment or task, I assign it to the client
via the Category in Outlook 2003. BUT...If I send an email and want
to assign a category, EVERY RECIPIENT SEES the category(s) in the
Keywords header. How do I NOT have this happen?! e.g. if I send an
email to a counseling list serve, but assign a category(s) because it
relates to a client, everyone will see the client's name,
condition,and when they started seeing me.

How to prevent this? Is there an answer? I know that bcc's are not
seen by others. How can one make 'Categories' like that?
Click to expand...

Why are you assigning categories to *outbound* e-mails unless you want
the recipient to see or use them? This is something YOU add to your
outbound e-mails that you *do* want the recipient to have. Outlook is
faithfully following your command to add a category value in the Keyword
header. You told it to.

Assign the category to the sent copy of your e-mail (in the Sent Items
folder or wherever you move it using a rule). The one you add to
outbound e-mails is something you have chosen to share with the
recipient. If you don't want to share the category with the recipient,
don't and instead assign the category to your sent copy (after you send
the e-mail). An item can have multiple categories. Just because you
have your own private categories that you assign an item doesn't mean
those are the same ones that you share with others.

Why are you assigning categories to outbound e-mails that you don't want
to share with the recipients? If you feel compelled to add a category
to an outbound e-mail but then not share it with the recipient then you
probably should ask your mail admin to strip the Keywords header from
your outbound e-mails. You want the mail server to do something to
compensate for your misuse of attributes that you deliberately assign to
outbound e-mails. I suppose if you assign the importance (priority)
flag to your outbound e-mails to use them only for yourself and really
not share with the recipient then you need to have the mail server strip
those out, too. If you add some fixed content to your outbound e-mails
from a set of boilerplates (so you have it in your sent copy) but don't
want to have recipients see it in the received copy then you need to
have the mail server parse out and remove that, too. You're telling
Outlook to add the content but you really don't want it in anything
other than your own copy so you'll need to have an upstream filter or
the mail server take out what you put in.

If you or your company don't operate your own mail server (to strip out
what you chose to put in) then you will need to change your behavior to
comply with your wants. Instead of assigning a category to an outbound
e-mail while you are composing it and then sending it, compose the
e-mail without a category (or don't add any that you don't want to
share), send it, and then right-click on YOUR copy to assign [different
or more] categories to it. It's the same number of mouse clicks (click
on Options and click on Categories button versus right-click on item and
click on Categories).
 
Or, use outlook only as an email client, and use something a little more
secure for patient management, or whatever confidential activity you are
tracking.
 
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