Having a dozen different VFX departments using different file transfer methods like FTP seems like a nightmare. But then I realized that the banks do this, and probably worse.
There's one that uses Gmail to exchange documents (not financial, but important nonetheless) and uses the read receipt to determine if it has ingested the data. Replaying ingestion is marking unread.
I've seen people in healthcare send patient data through whatsapp to other doctors in the same hospital.
It was not allowed and they had reliable corporate tools to exchange patient data, but the UX probably felt so cumbersome they'd rather face legal risks than doing it the right way.
It doesn't make it any less worse, but that was my takeaway from the Signal scandal. Of course more secure channels exist, but I'm sure the UX sucked big time!
The only part of that that seems crazy to me is the Gmail part. I’d want to control the mail server.
This is a sign they need deep reform and good management. Many such cases in technology these days.