Illustrate the information flow between different functional areas and explain the issues related to the use of information

Personnel – Personnel is the part of an organization concerned with the appointment, training, and welfare of employees.

Administration - Administration is the process of organising people and resources efficiently. Tasks they may do would include, emails, record keeping, meetings, opening post/sending.

Internal Information flows

Downwards – Downwards is when senior management notifies the rest of the organisation about decision takes about the direction of the company.

Upwards - Upward flow is when the staff report to the management on progress of their work and on any successes or problems management may need to address.

Across – Across flow is when information is passed between different parts of the business so they can work together to achieve goals and objectives. 

External Information Flow

Information also flows out of an organisation. Organisations will provide information to their customers which may be targeted to individual customers (for instance, a bank statement), a group of customers (such as a council’s report on its performance) or to all customers (such as a Plc annual report).

Data Protection Act 1998

The data protection act ensures that personal information is handled correctly. Anyone who gives personal information has to register with the data protection act and comply with eight values. Doing this makes sure information is fair and lawfully processed, processed for limited purposes, relevant, up to data and accurate, not kept for longer than needed, secure and lastly, information cannot be transferred to other countries without protection.  

Freedom of Information Act 2000 

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 deals with access to information. It gives individuals or companies the right to ask for information form any authority, including police and government.  

Computer Misuse Act 1990

The computer misuse defines three offences. These include unauthorised access to any computer program or data, for instance using someone else’s user ID and password. In addition, another offence is having unauthorised access with the intent to commit a crime and modifying contents on the computer.

P3 - Ethical issues

Companies have many ethical issues that need to be prevented. Therefore they have different code of practices which define the extent to which private use of the computer system is permitted. Codes of practice may include the use of emails. People often get harassing, threatening, spamming emails which must be banned. It will also include the use of internet. Inappropriate websites will be banned and there will be strict rules on.

Codes of practice

Many businesses have a code of practice to make it clear what uses can be made of their computing facilities. A code of practice will define which private use of the computer system is permitted. For example, an Item included on the code of practice is email. Threatening, spamming or harassing emails will be banned. In addition, use of the internet is included. Inappropriate websites will be banned and if a company has their own websites only certain people can post on it. Lastly, whistle blowing will be included in the code of practice. A whistle-blower is a person who exposes any kind of information or activity that is deemed illegal, dishonest, or not correct within an organization that is either private or public. The code of practice will protect computer users who draw management attention for misusing the system.