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Tag Archives for legal_compliance

links for 2007-07-12

  • Companies to update websites and email footers
    Companies in the UK must include certain regulatory information on their websites and in their email footers by the 1st January 2007 or they will breach the Companies Act and risk a fine. Every company should list its company details on all electronic communications and forms.
    (tags: email-compliance law legal)

Written on 12 July 2007 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Relevant Links with No Comments
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image filtering - the only legal defence against the new UK Harassment law

In a landmark case in 2006 on the subject of bullying in the workplace; the House of Lords have changed the law so as to make employers liable for workplace harassment even if they were not in any way negligent.

The House of Lords decided that the Prevention from Harassment Act 1997 covers the behaviour of employees at work even when the employer has not caused or failed to prevent the offending behaviour. Those employers now have vicarious liability for the acts of employees.

Previously, employees had to prove that the employer was negligent in not stopping bullying taking place and that it had caused them psychological damage.

The new ruling means that companies can be sued even if the company cannot be expected to have known about the bullying, and this ruling is certainly wide enough to include the use of inappropriate image materials as the vehicle for e-bullying.

This decision has serious implications for employers as it gives employees who are bullied or harassed at work a further basis on which to claim compensation from their employers. Moreover, some of the existing limitations and defences will not be available. For example, an employer has a defence under existing discrimination legislation if it can show that it took all reasonably practicable steps to prevent discriminatory harassment occurring – this defence was recently made out where an employer had implemented an effective harassment policy. This would not help an employer facing a claim that it was vicariously liable for an employee’s harassment under the Prevention from Harassment Act 1997.

As we know that harassment takes place in the workplace through the use of pornographic images, it seems that the only avenue forward for employers in avoiding the breadth of this decision is to technologically interdict the harassment and the inappropriate image content employed therein so as to stop it reaching the intended target.

This new law should make employers realise that an effective email and image filtering solution is now a must for any digital workplace and is now the only legal defence in terms of the law and vicarious liability.

Source: image-analyzer.com

Written on 24 May 2007 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Email Content Filtering with No Comments
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Email monitoring may contravene European law

Monitoring employees’ internet & telephone use at work may contravene EU human rights laws, after a landmark case in the European Court of Human Rights last week.

The case involved a public-sector employee, who won €3,000 in damages and €6,000 in court costs and expenses, after her communications were intercepted by her employer, Carmarthenshire College. Lynette Copland successfully took the UK government to court after her personal internet usage and telephone calls were monitored by one of her bosses in 1999.

This ruling means that the private use of company telecoms equipment and internet access may be protected under European human rights legislation, if the company has an acceptable personal-use policy and fails to inform the employee that their communications may be monitored. Employee communications are also covered by human rights legislation if the organisation has no explicit acceptable use policy and fails to inform the employee of the monitoring of personal email.

Privacy law firm, Pinsent Masons, said that although businesses now have clear guidance for monitoring work communications under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000, personal communications at work may be protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Human Rights Act 1998. “The lawful business practice regulations allow an employer to monitor and intercept business communications, so the court is implying that private use of a telecommunications system, assuming it is authorised via an acceptable-use policy, can be protected [by human rights legislation],” said Dr Chris Pounder, a privacy specialist. “The ruling is important in that it reinforces the need for a statutory basis for any interference with respect to private use of a telecommunications system by an employee,” Pounder added.

Source: ZDNet, 11 April 2007

Written on 11 April 2007 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Law & Legal Issues with No Comments
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Company warning! Email communications added to UK Sexual Offences Act

Changes to UK Sexual Offences Act could mean negligent companies face listing on the registry.

The inclusion of email harassment in the revised UK Sexual Offences Act could open companies up to legal troubles, said an industry insider.

The UK Sexual Offences Act 2003 was recently updated to include “improper use of public communications.” Because of this, a person sending sexually harassing emails could be handed a sexual offences prevention order (SOPO) and therefore be included on the national sex offender registry.

“It really has tremendous implications for any organisation because the widening of the sexual offenders act could mean employers have vicarious liability,” said Ed Macnair, CEO of internet security firm Marshal. “The person sending is prosecutable, but also the organisation.” He cited one case where a London hospital was held liable in a harassment suit involving members of staff and another in the US where an employee’s wife sued her husband’s firm because they facilitated his child pornography habits.

“You don’t want your chief operating officer on the sexual offender registry because somebody in the company did something,” Macnair said.

Source: ITPro

Written on 18 March 2007 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Email Monitoring, Law & Legal Issues with No Comments
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Whats your view on email monitoring within the workplace?

This blog site has been created to discuss the use of email monitoring and email filtering in the workplace.

I would like to hear your personal or professional views on the monitoring of email communications when adopted within an organisation.

This will be an open discussion to try to get different views from employees, administrators, middle management and company directors.

If you can touch on issues such as:

  • How monitoring may affect staff morale and performance?
  • Your rights to personal communications (maintaining your rights to privacy within the workplace, aka, the US/EU law on maintaining your rights to private life)
  • When should email monitoring be adopted within an organisation?
  • What is good about email monitoring, and in what circumstances?
  • What is bad about email monitoring, and how can it be implemented better?
  • Examples in the use of over-invasive email monitoring methods
  • Do you agree or disagree with the guidelines and national regulations governing the monitoring of emails within the workplace?
  • What are the alternatives to email monitoring (e.g. user education, better policy setting)

You can add any other relevant topics/points into the discussion.

If you wish to have your say then feel free to add your comments to this blog post. I would love to hear your view on this topic.

Please do not list any company, vendor or product names (or other identifiable information). If you do so, then your comments will be deleted and your opinions will not be read.

Written on 03 October 2006 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Email Monitoring, Stories, Surveys with No Comments
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Key recommendations for Email Monitoring

Below is a list of 9 key recommendations for Email Monitoring:

1. Conduct an Impact Assessment to identify the business purpose for email monitoring and confine it to what is necessary to accomplish that purpose. Monitoring should only be used as necessary and not be intrusive on the employees’ email communication.

2. Develop, or modify, corporate policies that cover email use (such as the Acceptable Use Policy, Information Security Policy and/or Computer Use Policy). Make sure that all users accept these policies and they are documented.

3. Train users on current best practices of email management and use.

4. Allow management to appraise their staff regarding email use and what standards will be used to evaluate their performance.

5. Enforce and police all policies regarding email use at all times.

6. Consider which email monitoring tools are appropriate for the organisation. Only implement when supporting processes, procedures and resources are in place.

7. Frequently review and update corporate policies to ensure they fully comply with the law and regulations, and any changes thereafter.

8. Communicate any changes of policy to all email users and management.

9. Thoroughly consider the costs of excessive monitoring, such as ethics, low morale, high turnover, and potential lawsuits.

Written on 24 September 2006 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Email Compliance, Email Monitoring with No Comments
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Nearly 1 in 4 emails attachments contain porn images

SurfControl estimates that nearly one in every four image attachments sent through a business email system may contain explicit adult-rated images and up to 75% of email traffic is non-business related.

Written on 20 September 2006 by Dicontas Blog Admin under Interesting Stats with No Comments
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Other Recent Posts:

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  2. Email spam - becoming sound practice! - 7th Nov 2007
  3. Email Security (Encryption) 2007 Review - 2nd Oct 2007
  4. Lost emails cause 5m hours of IT Management time - 25th Sep 2007
  5. Turning your email address into a phone call - 6th Sep 2007
  6. links for 2007-08-21 - 21st Aug 2007
  7. Sitemap - 21st Aug 2007
  8. Trend Micro joins the SaaS team for email protection - 14th Aug 2007
  9. E-mail stress keeps 1 in 3 workers on edge of Inbox - 13th Aug 2007
  10. links for 2007-08-07 - 7th Aug 2007
  11. links for 2007-07-31 - 1st Aug 2007
  12. links for 2007-07-27 - 27th Jul 2007
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