If you mail a letter you trust that only the intended recipient will read it but there may be prying eyes along they way that could also access the letter. That is why we send important messages in sealed envelopes rather than on the back of postcards.

Sending and receiving email works in a similar way to sending a postcard.

A growing number of email providers are now starting to use Transport Layer Security (TLS). When an email is encrypted in transit with TLS, it makes it harder for others to read what you’re sending (creates a sealed envelope).

Making email safer is a good initiative

Let’s not forget that email as a channel has to date NOT been a secure method of communication which is why it wasn’t, and still isn’t, a good idea to use email to send personal information like your identification number or bank account should not be included in the body of the email.

Good news for organizations is that suppliers like Striata do provide a secure way to communicate confidential information via email to customers – in an encrypted attachment that is protected with a password.

There is an important distinction to be made between protecting information in an email and protecting information in an attachment.

Striata sends 3 types of emails on behalf of its clients to their customers:

• marketing and loyalty messages
• transactional notifications
• secure, encrypted document attachments

Our customers know that it’s bad practice to include confidential or personally identifiable information inside the body of a marketing, loyalty or transactional email.

Information that is private (identification, bank details, personal circumstances, financial status), should be included inside an encrypted attachment. Additionally, we recommend that the attachment be protected with a password or shared secret which has become standard practice in most financial services sectors and should be in other industries.

We agree that all players in the email arena should work towards making email a more secure way to communicate. And to that end, we support Google’s drive to make Transport Layer Security (TLS) a standard amongst mail senders. It would be great to know that your personal information inside an email is protected. But even with Google driving, it does only protect one leg of the journey.

For now, prevention is the best approach to avoid unlawful interception of your personal information. Simply don’t put it in the body of an email.