Yet another disclosure of confidential information has
highlighted why it is important for employers to have policies and
procedures in place regarding how confidential information is dealt
with by their employees, writes Jimmy Desai, partner atBlake
Lapthorn.
Details about
John Sawyer (soon to be head of MI6) being put on Facebook
prompted the government to insist that no state secrets had been
revealed.
However, this is not an isolated incident.
There have been a number of occasions when information placed on
Facebook have caused problems. For example, last year, a prison
guard from Leicester was dismissed when it was discovered that he
was Facebook friends with a number of current and former inmates of
his prison. And Argos dismissed an employee for creating the
Facebook group "I work at Argos and can't wait to leave because
it's sh*t".
Employees have also been dismissed for making bullying or
discriminatory Facebook comments, or posts which suggest employees
are "pulling a sickie".
Employers should think about putting in place written policies
which explain how employees should use the internet and social
networking sites, or regarding what (if any) information employees
can reveal about an employer.
However, employers need to be aware that monitoring of employees
at work is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 and an
employee's right to privacy, since employee monitoring can include
monitoring employees' telephone and e-mail usage as well as
internet usage generally.
The Information Commissioner's Office gives
detailed guidance as to how employers should approach the
monitoring of their employees at work.
This is certainly not going to be the last incident where
confidential information enters onto the internet. What is
important is that employers consider how they hold confidential
information, who has access to it and what policies and procedures
are in place to protect that confidential information so that these
incidents do not occur or, if they do, the employer has already
thought about what it is going to do.