Business Communications P5: Explain the legal and ethical issues in relation to the use of business information. P6: Explain the operational issues in relation to the use of business information.
Legislation: “A collection of written principles that guide behaviour in society”. Data Protection Act 1998: Introduced to protect the information stored about individuals. All businesses that store information must register with the Data Protection Registrar and adhere to the eight principles of the Act. According to the Act the Data must: •
Be fairly and lawfully processed
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Be accurate
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Be relevant to the purpose it is stored for and not excessive
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Be processed for limited purposes
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Be kept only for as long as is necessary
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Be processed in line with individual’s rights
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Be secure
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Not be transferred to countries without adequate protection.
Adidas could keep their data protected by the use of keys and locks. They could store their most important information away in a very secure room where only a limited number of people who are trusted not to do anything, have access to. The information could be kept in a room where only a certain amount of people have a key to. This way, anyone that does not have the right to access the data, won’t be able to.
Computer Misuse Act 1990: Businesses are also vulnerable to attacks on their computer systems from viruses, hackers, copyright infringements and fraud. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 was introduced in attempt to prevent this. This Act makes it illegal to: •
Gain unauthorised access to computer’s data (hacking) – this includes the illegal copying of programs
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Gain unauthorised access to a computer’s data for blackmail purposes
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Gain unauthorised access to a computer’s data with the intention of altering or deleting it – this includes the planting of viruses
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Copy programs illegally
Adidas could make sure there data is secure from hackers by technological solutions. Technological solutions include firewalls, access control systems, and intrusion detection systems, reporting and monitoring software and so on. These technological solutions are a very high quality and they are very good at detecting viruses, or anything suspicious happening to a person’s information.
Freedom of Information Act 2000: The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public authorities. It does this in two ways: Public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities Members of the public are entitled to request information from public authorities. The Act covers any recorded information that is held by a public authority in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and by UK Public authorities include government departments, local authorities, the NHS, state schools and police forces. Recorded information includes printed documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and sound or video recordings.
Ethical Issues: Ethics are a set of principles that underpin how a business behaves, ethical and legal behaviour are not the same thing. Business Ethics are moral principles concerning acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by businesses.
Whistle-blowing: This policy encourages employees to raise any serious concerns they may have about their employer within the business rather than externally. Often employees don’t raise concerns about health and safety issues or staff bullying or fraud because they feel it is untrustworthy to their manager but communication channels allow staff to advance their issues. The channels enable staff to raise their concerns and there is usually a named contact whose job it is to deal with these issues.
Email: Many companies are very strict on how and what their employees should use email for.
Internet: Many companies also have codes of practice on the use of the internet and what their employees can and cannot use the internet for. There are also codes of practice which govern selling on the internet, which many businesses adhere to.
P6 Stage 2 Organisations have to store and manage countless pieces of information, with some being far more important than others.
Two fundamental Issues are: 1. The organisation receives the information it requires 2. The appropriate members of staff receives the information
To make sure that information is managed appropriately, a number of policies and procedures have to be put in place as listed below. Explain using the table below why your organisation may need to follow these particular policies and procedures.
◊ Security of Information
Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, perusal, inspection, recording or destruction. Adidas will need to make sure their information is secured as if it is not, rival companies will easily be able to get hold of their important data, and use it against them. If their information about the company is not secured, then Nike, for example, may look at their data, and find out a way that they can make similar products, for less cost, and sell them for cheaper.
◊ Back ups A person, plan, piece of equipment, etc. that you can use to replace another if necessary. Adidas will need to have backups of the businesses data as if anything happens to their important data, they will need to be able to easily find another copy of the information, or it will be lost forever, which can only bring problems.
◊ Health and Safety A set of laws made in the UK in 1974 in order to protect people at work and make sure that they do not have to work in dangerous conditions, without the proper clothing or safety equipment etc. Adidas need to make sure that their health and safety standards are up to scratch as if they are not, their employees
◊ Business Continuance Plans A business continuity plan is a plan to continue operations if a place of business (e.g., an office, work site or data centre) is affected by adverse physical conditions, such as a storm,
fire or crime. Such a plan typically explains how the business would recover its operations or move operations to another location. For example, if a fire destroys an office building or data centre, the people and business or data centre operations would relocate to a recovery site.
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