Freedom of Information Act 2000 - this Act gives individuals and businesses the right to request information that is held by public authorities such as the government. If by any chance the public authority refuses to give the requested information to the individual or business then the Commissioners’’ office would investigate and come to a conclusion as to whether this information should be released. Westminster Kingsway College - gives you power to ask for your grades from your teachers at anytime. Also The college tells us information on most of the things that we should be a part of such as what the money is spent on, the locations of all the WKC colleges, the colleges companies and partners, students activities and the policies that the college have such as the code of conduct. This information could be accessed to anyone within the college as it is a publication scheme.
Ethical Issues – ethical means: more principles, morally correct or acceptable behaviour, ethics cover the moral aspect within the business and the codes of conduct this tends to cover only the ethical aspects and is distinctively separated from any legal obligations. However there are some aspects which may be linked to some legislation.
Whistle blowing
It is much more commonly called ‘blowing the whistle’ this means making a disclosure in the public interest. There are some ethical issues in the disclosure of the information that is being released there must be some ethical implication in order to make sure that the information shared is being dealt with confidentially. Some concerns which may be raised may be surrounding theft or fraud.
Emails
Emails are a popular method of communicating in business thus there must be some ethical issues considered there is a certain conduct would need to be used in businesses to prevent any issues relating to the wrong person reading an email which may not be meant for them this email could contain some confidential information about a customer or employee. Employees must be advised not to sending important or high security information on emails due to the problems which may occur if the email is sent to the wrong person. Westminster Kingsway College - the college uses email to give feedback to the students via outlook also the use email to give information about what going on in he courses and important dates in the term.
Internet
The internet is widely used in business there are particular actions required by the business in order to prevent the degree of ethical issues which can arise, there are particular sites which are blocked in order to protect workers, especially whilst at work. Westminster Kingsway College - the college uses internet for Moodle witch you can access work from home and all the units also can read headers which gives information about the courses.
Operational Issues - In order form information to be management and controlled effectively within the organisation it is necessary for the business out in place certain operational tools these tools can be in the form of policies and procedures.
Information Security
Security management includes dealing with all aspects of how information is monitoring and controlled it also deals with maintaining the reliability and availability of organisational information and knowledge. This is extremely important as this information is useful to management when making effective decisions many business may use information technology (IT) to store this information safely
However there are some risks in doing this, including the risks of hacking, system failure or viruses
This is where backing up information becomes crucial. Westminster Kingsway College - All student data – name, telephone number, next of kin etc should only be kept secure and not used for other purposes, e.g. texting students if college is cancelled or if there’s work needed handed in.
Backups
In order for business to prevent losing any useful and important information, all information is backed up this improves the overall reliability of IT systems staff in business may be encouraged to back up certain documents regularly, however there may be some poor practice throughout the organisation and some may do it less frequently failure to follow such steps could cause a delay in the running of ordinary daily activities. Employees will be encouraged to back up all information on a central server. Westminster Kingsway College - the teachers tell the students to backup their work in case a fault by the computer or if you forget to save updated work, so the teachers will tell you to all have back ups of your work just to make it easier for the students to remember what there on.
Business Continuance
Business continuance refers to the process and procedure in which a business puts in place in order to ensure that the important functions can continue to operate during and after a disaster the aim is to enable planning in order to prevent an interruption. There will be plans devised for many different scenarios in a business continuance plan there will be some plan in terms of the backing up of information.
Health and Safety
Health and Safety is one of the most important operation issues in business due policies and procedures surrounding health and safety must be followed by everybody in an organisation failure to do so could put everyone in danger. There are legislation that protect the employee, Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in addition employers tend to train their employees in order for them to adopt and follow the correct procedure, this is useful in prevent any problems within the workplace. Westminster Kingsway College - the college will have to be as safe and it can for the students in case of an emergency, for example if theirs
water on the floor they will put up a sign to tell you the floors wet and the college has to have checks on its health and safety so ofsted will bring people to come check up on it if everything on point. In many of the rooms there are diagrams which show how to sit on a chair properly.
In conclusion I have analysed the legal, ethical and operational issues in relation to the use of business information and have related it to Westminster Kingsway College, using appropriate examples.
by
gulo9999 (student)
