Professor Deborah Rhode weighs in on the professional consequences for those who used their work email addresses to open up accounts on the cheater website, Ashley Madison.  

The release of hacked data from the self-proclaimed cheater site Ashley Madison could be disastrous for more than just marriages. For some of the thousands of people who used their work e-mail addresses to sign up on the website — including more than a few in government — the fallout could spill over to their professional lives.

A Chronicle review of the data dump found that scores of California residents used e-mail accounts issued to them by city, county and state agencies as well as public schools and universities. There are prison guards, professors, safety regulators, court employees and cops. At least two people appear to have used their San Francisco city government e-mail to log on.

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“What were they thinking?” asked Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor. “I think it reflects a culture in which people’s work and personal lives spill over, especially when it comes to technological issues.”

Rhode said many people don’t think anything of doing Christmas shopping online while at work, or responding to work e-mails on their own time from their home computer.

“There’s a kind of rationalization that a lot of them work from home, so it’s a two-way street — if they are doing work-related things on personal time, what’s the problem with doing personal things on work time?” she said.

Rhode said many companies have policies against the private use of work equipment, which could put jobs in danger. But companies going as far as firing someone in the wake of the Ashley Madison scandal is unlikely, she said.

“I think there would be a real reluctance to single out a few people just because this personal use is so offensive, when the vast majority of people get away with it,” Rhode said. “That said, I think the shaming option is a pretty good one. Expose them.”