Controlling Access to Personal Information

Personal information has value and must be safeguarded. It is understandable that people wish to keep private all manner of information about themselves. When they trust their information to an organisation, that organisation has a duty of care to secure the details and to use them responsibly.
In fact, their responsibility extends beyond a duty of care – companies have a legal obligation to collect, use and store personal records responsibly. The Data Protection Act 1998, enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office, governs how UK businesses may handle knowledge about living people.
Customers
When a company collects facts about its customers, it must state how it intends to use and store them and must not do something else instead. Businesses may not pass their lists on to third parties without consent, and must not keep the contents longer than necessary.Employees
Although the Data Protection Act is usually thought of in terms of knowledge about customers, it is equally applicable to the details a business holds about its own employees.The Human Resources department will keep records about their staff. This will cover the obvious things such as addresses and telephone numbers. Staff that are paid electronically into their bank accounts will also have handed over their bank details, and records will be kept of national insurance numbers, tax codes and the total remuneration package they receive. All of these things have some value to people outside the organisation: fraudsters looking to commit identity theft, or the company’s competitors who would like to know how much they pay their staff.
Because of this, it is important that records about employees are held securely, and that the right to use them is rigorously controlled.
Practical Measures to Control Access to Information
Suppose a company keeps a computerised list of its personal customers. This represents a major business asset, and it should be defended. It could be very harmful, for example, if an employee were to be poached by a competitor and decided to take a copy of all the customer records to his or her new job!So it makes sense for the company to hold customer records in a form that cannot easily be copied; at the very least, such copying should be logged by the system. Just think of all the bad publicity that has come from government departments losing people’s records that should never have been copied to unsecured systems in the first place.
Stringent security measures not only secure the assets of the company, but they also protect the individuals to whom the data relates. Other things that can help are granting rights on a “need to know” basis, and using passwords and encryption.
Even if personal information is being held on paper, there needs to be adequate physical security in place to control who has access to it.
Defending Your Own Information
Under the Data Protection Act, you have the right to access information held about you and to correct it if it is inaccurate. This right is known as subject access. You may have to pay a small fee to cover the administration of your request.NB*The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) superseded the UK Data Protection Act 1998 on May 25, 2018. The new policy expands the rights of individuals to control how their personal data is collected and processed. It places a range of new obligations on organisations to be more accountable for data protection.
Organisations are obliged to have technical and procedural measures in place to safeguard the personal information they hold.
Re: Worker-Manager Confidentiality
I work in a private care home, my manager has absolutely no understanding about GDPR, confidentiality or treat all staff…
Re: What to Do If Your Privacy is Invaded at Work
A customer who i never knew was telling my section leader and another colleague he knew me, i didn't know…
Re: Contacting Employees in Their Homes
My manager has just called me on my day off to say that the company tablet I used at work didn't 'send' the details they…
Re: Introduction to the Data Protection Act
My work place changed locks after I left the building yesterday (I open the building and was the only one on that…
Re: Contacting Employees in Their Homes
My manager has a horrible habit of contacting me at home. It is constant. I've said no to overtime and she still won't…
Re: Worker-Manager Confidentiality
Hi my co worker was using drugs driving whilst using mobile phone leaving me to do all the work having outbursts in clients home…
Re: Worker-Manager Confidentiality
Hi my co worker was using drugs driving whilst using mobile phone leaving me to do all the work having outbursts in clients home…
Re: Personal Possessions in the Workplace
So I left my dairy at somewhere at work one day and as I was at work I wasn't to concerned I knew it would be around…
Re: Privacy: What Every Employee Needs to Know
Do I have to give my personal mobile number to an employer
Re: What to Do If Your Privacy is Invaded at Work
I started a job recently and My co-worker went through my boss' desk and took pictures of my personal…