How The Data Protection Act Can Affect Your Company
IntroductionIn this report I will be covering how the data protection
act can, and will affect your company.
I will be covering the principles of the data protection act, the
computer misuse and the threats that can affect your company.
Data protection is concerned with the protection of your fundamental
right to privacy, and your right to exercise control over how your
personal information is used. It can affect any company that stores
information about its customers in many ways.
The data protection act of 1998 came into force on the 1st of March
2000. The data protection act sets rules on how to process personal
information that is held on a computer.
The data protection act can benefit people by giving them certain
rights and that every one that holds personal information must be open
about how the information was obtained and used. I will show this in
my report in many ways.
Contents
Page 1 - The principles of the data protection act
Page 2 - How the principles will affect your company
Page 3 - What your Company should do as a Result to the principles
Page 4 - How Computer misuse can affect your company
Page 5 - How to counter computer misuse
Page 6 - Bibliography
The Principles Of The Data Protection Act
There are the eight main principles of the data protection act, your
data must be:
* Fairly and lawfully processed. The processing of data must be done
fairly and lawfully and the person of which the data has been
collected from must not be led into thinking that they data is
being collected for one reason when the collector is planning to
use it for another purpose.
* Processed for limited purposes this means that the data being
collected has to be for acceptable purposes.
For many years, there has been an ongoing fight between employers and employees pertaining to employee rights. The main thing that they have fought about is computer and email monitoring.
policies as well as practices. It enables authorities to make informed decisions based on the
The Data Protection Act 1998 places controls on the length of time, who has access, and how much personal information can be stored on an individual by organisations, businesses and the Government. Any private information must be kept secure in compliance with the law. This ensures the individual’s right to privacy and confidentiality is upheld. (Gov.uk.
In 1948, George Orwell wrote about a society in which individual privacy was nonexistent. In this society, which he imagined would become a reality in the 1980s, surveillance was foremost. Everything one did was under surveillance by “Big Brother”, an unseen figure who was always watching you. Surveillance in this society was imposed and malicious. Although this type of society has never fully become a reality in the Western world, changes in technology and media are indirectly bringing this imagined society, one of complete surveillance, to life. With the rise in corporate business and commercialism, surveillance in society increasing; however, new media has brought about a significant shift in its use. In the 20th century, surveillance was primarily used for “protective measures”, as Orwell had imagined. In the 21st century, there has been a rise in its use for commercialism. This essay will critically analyze the developments in new media that have contributed to this shift, as well as explain the reason for the ubiquitous nature of surveillance in today’s western society. To aid with this analysis, surveillance will hereby be defined as a “focused, systematic, and routine attention to personal details for purposes of influence, management, protection or direction” (Lyon 2007:14).
Privacy does not have a single definition and it is a concept that is not easily defined. Information privacy is an individual's claim to control the terms under which personal information is acquired, disclosed, and used [9]. In the context of privacy, personal information includes any information relating to or traceable to an individual person [ 1]. Privacy can be defined as a fundamental human right; thus, privacy protection which involves the establishment of rules governing the collection and handling of personal data can be seen as a boundary line as how far society can intrude into a person's affairs.
Terms and Laws have gradually change overtime dealing with different situations and economic troubles in the world in general. So then dealing with these issues the workplace has become more complex with little or no rights to privacy. Privacy briefly explained is a person’s right to choose whether or not to withhold information they feel is dear to them. If this something will not hurt the business, or its party members then it should be kept private. All employees always should have rights to privacy in the workplace. Five main points dealing with privacy in public/private structured businesses are background checks, respect of off duty activities/leisure, drug testing, workplace search, and monitoring of workplace activity. Coming to a conclusion on privacy, are there any limits to which employers have limitations to intrusion, dominance on the employee’s behavior, and properties.
The private sector is composed of organisations that are privately owned and are not part of the government, corporations and partnerships, for example: retail shops and local business. The private sector progresses expeditious because it promotes quality to win over customers, which will lead to a greater chance of them achieving the objective of making profit. Whereas the public sector is composed of companies, that are controlled and maintained by the government. There are homogeneous attributes between the public and private sector, yet they are to a great extent exceeded by the number of differences and this essay will discuss the major differences between these sectors, which are: transparency, customer feedback, basis of
In recent times our right to privacy has been under fire, particularly in the workplace. With the fear of terrorists in today's world, we have been willing to sacrifice some of our individual rights for the rights of a society as a whole. A majority of these changes have taken place since September 11, 2001, in an attempt to prevent future terrorist attacks. New legislation, such as the USA Patriot Act, which decreases the limitations on the federal government's ability to monitor people, has been created for this reason. Although new legislation may be instrumental in the defense of our national security, we must take a strong look at their effect and the effect of decreased privacy in the workplace. Advances in technology, coupled with new legislation, has had a serious toll on our privacy especially at work. It is now possible to monitor an employee's keystrokes on the computer to how much time a day is spent on bathroom breaks. It is imperative for us to take a stand against these violations to our rights
Privacy in the Workplace Introduction Technology has developed in leaps and bounds over the past few decades. The case is that the law always has difficulty keeping pace with new issues and technology and the few laws that are enacted are usually very general and obscure. The main topic of this paper is to address the effect of technology on privacy in the workplace. We have to have an understanding of privacy before trying to protect it. Based on the Gift of Fire, privacy has three pieces: freedom from intrusion, control of information about one's self, and freedom from surveillance.1 People's rights have always been protected by the constitution, such as the Fourth Amendment, which protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures".
The finding of this report are based on four different factors for different factor for analysis of personal data protection and personal data privacy. The first is current regulations, which ……
As we evolve in the information age, online privacy rights have grown over the past years. In 1986, a federal law was passed to protect an individual’s electronical information. “This law was produced to make a fair balance among the privacy expectations of citizens and the legitimate needs of law enforcement” (EPIC). With the Internet developing intensely, there is a great deal at stake such as the theft of your identification. But where it all begins is when you access the Internet. This is the first step in being aware of your privacy because you go through the process in signing up with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). With this process you have a IP address attached to your ISP. This is the primary step on how your information starts
In this report, I will be addressing e-mail, Internet use, and privacy policies in my workplace; the current laws regulating employee e-mail and Internet privacy; the reasons to companies carry out e-mail and Internet use policies; the assumptions employees make about their privacy at work; and how these policies affect employee privacy at work.
Companies must adhere to the Data Protection Act (1998) which protects consumers’ data privacy. According to the EU Data Protection Directive (1995), there are eight principles of which the data collection should follow:
The right to privacy is our right to keep a domain around us, which includes all those things that are apart of us, such as our body, home, property, thoughts, feelings, secrets and identity. The right to privacy gives us the ability to choose which parts in this domain can be accessed by others, and to control the extent, manner and timing of the use of those parts we choose to disclose (Privacy Concerns 1). “Everyone has the right for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right…” (Privacy concerns 2). In 1998, the Human Rights Act, the act sets out the fundamental rights and freedoms that individuals have, came into force; it incorporated the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 which protects the right to private and family life. Was the first time there was a generalized right to privacy recognized by law in this country.
Many legal steps have implemented worldwide to ensure the protection and privacy of data in many countries in many