Data protection is a subject that maybe we all ought to take a little more seriously than we sometimes do. This was highlighted last week when a lot of emails went around regarding a popular online children's game (remember no names on this blog) that is handled by one of our sister sites. It seems that someone managed to add just about every email user in Sitel worldwide to their internal distribution list. In the grand scheme of things it's not the worst data protection breach ever. For most of us it was just an amusing start to our day. Something to talk about by the coffee machine. No harm done.
Data protection is nonetheless a serious business. Which is why I find it hard to bite my tongue when someone tries to use it as an excuse for something completely unrelated. This has happened to me a couple of times. For example I once had an operations manager tell me to put my bag under my desk rather than on it "Because the data protection act says you have to".
No it doesn't.
Data protection law says that nobody has the right to see any potentially sensitive information about you without your say so and that companies must take steps to ensure that only those who need it to do their work have access to your data. It doesn’t mention the placement of employees bags at all as far as I can tell. Anecdotal evidence suggests I'm not the only person to have minor company policy presented to me as legal requirement. Why would this bother me? Simply because it's wrong. By using it as a bullshit excuse to make company policy seem more important you're actually making data protection law seem less important. When you work with members of the public for any length of time you tend to get a highly developed bullshit detector and that incident just made this person look stupid.
If something is a legal requirement that's fine. We know companies have laws to follow just the same as we all have laws to follow outside of work. Likewise if it's company policy just say so. We're used to petty rules and we really don’t mind. It's just part of life. As for the person who altered the email distribution list last week. I bet you feel a right plonker now.
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