Secure e-mailing

Municipality of Veenendaal

This algorithm helps employees of the Municipality of Veenendaal determine when an e-mail contains sensitive information and should be sent securely.

Last change on 28th of January 2025, at 13:21 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
• Impact assessment: Field not filled in.
• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Organisation and business operations

Begin date

2021-03

Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

The purpose of this algorithm is to contribute to the proper security of information sent by e-mail. It is used by Gemeente Veenendaal when sending e-mails to recipients outside the organisation. These include companies and citizens, for example. The algorithm ensures that security measures are not too little, but also not too much. It alerts the sender of an e-mail to possible sensitive information and encourages them to send it securely. The e-mail is secured with encryption, two-factor authentication for the recipient, the ability to revoke the e-mail and logging. The application also provides the ability to see if the e-mail and/or attachment have been viewed by the recipient.

In this way, sensitive information is secured, while insensitive information remains accessible to the recipient without additional friction. The algorithm only affects the process of e-mail transmission and has no impact on the material legal status of citizens or companies.

Considerations

The use of this algorithm helps ensure that e-mails are sent with the right level of security. Classification of e-mails by algorithm is more effective than classification based on a glossary compiled by human input or classification by the sender, while at the same time the algorithm does not affect the content of an e-mail.

Human intervention

In principle, the user makes the choice whether or not to send an e-mail securely based on the recommendation by the algorithm. It is also possible to automate the choice of whether or not to send an e-mail securely based on the algorithm. In that case, a user can still choose to explicitly send an e-mail securely by himself.

Risk management

The performance of the algorithm is monitored by the supplier. If it appears that the algorithm is making incorrect classifications more often, this is picked up by the monitoring so that adjustments to the algorithm can be made. For the organisation, the accuracy of Smart Classification is also visible in an administrator dashboard.

Operations

Data

The algorithm is based on anonymised historical messages. These messages are known to have been sent securely or not. The anonymisation is done in several steps, storing only aggregates over many thousands of messages. In addition, personal data are automatically removed from the data. With this, the data is anonymised and the original messages cannot be retrieved from the data.

Technical design

When creating a new e-mail, the algorithm compares the terms used in the message and attachments with previous e-mails sent. If the e-mail is sufficiently similar to messages normally sent securely, the e-mail is flagged as potentially sensitive. Based on the terminology in the e-mail, it is determined whether it relates to a specific category of sensitive information, such as medical or legal. The moment the e-mail is classified as sensitive and is about a topic that the organisation has set to be sent securely, the user is given a recommendation to send the e-mail securely.