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Spy Repellent

Espionage strategies range from illegal to merely sleazy. In most cases, the best defense is employee awareness.

May 01, 2003 —

Spy Repellent
Espionage strategies range from illegal to merely sleazy. In most cases, the best defense is employee awareness.
How a Rival Could Snoop Can the Law Help? How to Plug the Hole
Look at Securities and Exchange Commission filings and annual reports to see where you are making investments and generating profits. No. This is public information. You can't, at least not when information must be disclosed for legal reasons or when disclosure benefits outweigh the risks.
Study regulatory filings like those filed with the Environmental Protection Agency or OSHA. They may be freely available or obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Most of this information is on the public record, but some sensitive information, like trade secrets, is protected from FOIA requests. Make sure that documents aren't overly revealing, which can happen when other companies in an industry have been targets of regulatory agencies.
Study job postings to learn about your facilities, desired skill sets and company expansions. No. You want this information to be public. Be stingy with details; remove postings as soon as jobs are filled. Use "blind" postings on job boards.
Send someone on a job interview to gather information about your facilities and strategy. Not much. As a general rule, misrepresenting oneself is not against the law (though, see below). Make sure you're not giving away more information than necessary during the interview process.
Read press releases on your company website to find out about developing strategies. No. Press releases are intended for the public. Purge press releases that have outlived their usefulness.
Attend a talk by your researchers at a conference and ask questions afterward. Or visit your trade show booth pretending to be a customer. No. These are public events, and trying to boot someone you suspect is a spy can get your company in legal trouble. Warn employees about this ruse, and educate them about what kinds of information they have that would be most useful to rivals.
Call your employee and pretend to be the assistant to the CEO looking for information. Yes. While it's not illegal to misrepresent oneself, it is illegal to pose as a specific person. Educate employees about how to respond to requests for information.
Call a current employee and pretend to be working on a research project for school or doing a survey for a market research firm, perhaps asking questions that seem innocuous. This is illegal only if the guise prompts the employee to disclose a trade secret—in which case, a lawyer could argue that it must not have been a trade secret if it were so easily revealed. Always ask for a name and phone number and confirm the identity of someone unknown. Suspicious calls should be transferred to corporate communications or the security office.
Call a laid-off employee or recent retiree to pump them for information, hoping they're either disgruntled or eager to talk about their former work. The target may be violating a nondisclosure agreement, but the caller is probably not breaking the law (unless a trade secret is in play). Make sure employees who have access to sensitive information sign nondisclosure agreements.
Listen in on conversations at a restaurant or coffee shop frequented by employees, or at airport lounges or on flights. No. Remind employees not to have sensitive conversations in public places; educate them about what information would be most useful to rivals.
Go dumpster-diving (sort through your trash for useful documents and other information). This is illegal only if the trash is on private property. Have a shredding policy; educate employees about which documents are sensitive.
Employ someone on the night cleaning staff to make copies of important documents or plant what some professionals call "clandestine listening devices" and the rest of us call "bugs." This is illegal but widely accepted in some countries. Build security into cleaning service contracts. Make a clean desk policy. Make sure employees lock sensitive documents up at night. Consider hiring a security firm to periodically sweep for bugs.
Bribe a hotel cleaning staff to get access to an executive's hotel room, either to plant a bug or to steal documents or a laptop computer. This is illegal but widely accepted in some countries. Have employees guard documents and laptop computers closely. On trips to high-risk areas, consider having executives use pseudonyms.

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