Notice of Confidentiality
Last week I decided that I needed a notice of confidentiality to add to my emails at school. Because the internet has become the go-to tool for such things, I did a quick Google search. I was disappointed with the results. Muddling through the too-serious and too-ridiculous or too-off-topic, I realized it would be faster to simply craft my own. Here, then, is my own notice of confidentiality. It has never been evaluated by a lawyer (otherwise it would be longer), and is certain to be legally impotent. It does, however, remind us that sometimes we take ourselves too seriously.
Notice of Confidentiality: The information contained in this message is intended for those addressees so named by the originating sender. The contents of this message should not be disseminated, distributed, copied, converted to audio files through mechanical transcoding, read aloud in places where you can be overheard (even with a great British accent it’s still a no-no), translated to any foreign languages (including dead languages like Latin, or dying languages such as Yuchi, Djawi, or Siletz Dee-ni) or constructed languages (yes, Esperanto and Sylvan are out), or Braille, or Sign (including ASL, baseball coach signs, or the middle finger). In short, this message is confidential, which shall herein be defined as none of your business (unless you are an addressee so named which was explained in the first sentence, but we’re not going over that again or this disclaimer will turn into John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt).
If it isn’t meant for you, contact the sender immediately to inform him, and delete this message.
By the way, I am not responsible for what you do with this information. If you print it out, roll it into a ball, and try to swallow it without water, choke, then are barely saved the hasty application of the Heimlich maneuver, it’s not my responsibility. If you see it on your screen, but the pixels go all wacky and flash really fast, and the image zings through your eyes into some forgotten crevice in your brain that spirals you into an epileptic seizure, it’s not my fault. If you use this in an e-mail and your boss calls you on the carpet because the company disclaimer should actually have two pages more than the iTunes legal notice, I’m not responsible for your choices. In other words, use at your own risk. After all, you found this on the internet.
