Caroline Kennedy Used Personal E-mail for State Department Business, Report Finds

Caroline Kennedy, the United States ambassador to Japan, and several other senior American diplomats there have used personal e-mail accounts to conduct State Department business, the inspector general for the department said in a report.

The inspector general, Steve A. Linick, identified instances in which “sensitive but unclassified” information was sent and received on personal email accounts, the report said. The report also said the inspector general’s office “has previously reported on the risks associated with using commercial email for official government business.” It added that “such risks include data loss, hacking, phishing and spoofing of email accounts, as well as inadequate protections for personally identifiable information.” The State Department’s policy, the report said, “is that employees generally should not use private email accounts (for example, Gmail, AOL, Yahoo and so forth) for official business.” It added that “employees are also expected to use approved, secure methods to transmit sensitive but unclassified information when available and practical.”