At a time when the country has seen more employees working from home than ever before, there has never been a more important time to ensure we continue to uphold our Security of Processing. It is something to consider whilst we continue to keep the country moving, following the governments instructions to defeat the current threat we face from Covid-19.
When we consider what this means, we have to take into account that a lot of us are working differently to how we usually do. As such, we can take some basic steps to protect the data we process and uphold the requirements set out by the organisations we work for. Many of us will have signed and agreed an acceptable usage agreement from our employer for ICT equipment and networks. When working remotely it is even more important to familiarise ourselves with this. Things such as not leaving laptops and work phones unattended or in an area where they are easily accessible to unauthorised 3rd parties will in the most part uphold this. Some may even be using personal devices and accessing cloud networks remotely from them. Can you be sure that your device is free of viruses and malware and do we have the necessary software installed to manage this? Have you ensured that your device is fully up-to-date with all system updates and patches that ensure system stability and security? Speak to your ICT providers for help, it’s important to get this right.
We just need to remember the simple things whilst working remotely or from home:
- Make sure you lock your accounts or the devise when unattended
- If you do share a laptop or tablet, log out before you hand it over to someone else say, at the end of the work day
- If printing things at home, only do so if absolutely necessary.
Whilst we are in what is an unprecedented time, we still need to make sure we uphold our data processing principles and organisations may wish to issue some further guidance to all staff as not everyone works from home on a regular basis.
A simple homeworking agreement would suffice, with links to the Data Protection policy for your organisation and the ICT policy. If you have an acceptable usage policy/agreement, reissue this for clarity. You are not trying to catch people out but you want to on-board people with this new way of working.
The last point to make is that if you have not practiced remote working before. Ensure you agree a new way of breach reporting and how you intend to manage subject access requests as the legislation around this has not been relaxed in light of the pandemic. You will still need to keep on top of this, so a discussion with your DPO (Data Protection Officer) would be prudent.
Whilst no one can be certain what is going to happen over the next few weeks, we all need to keep ourselves and our organisations safe in every sense. If you would like to know more about the services FusionHR offers in relation to data protection, please do not hesitate to contact us by calling 01924 827869 or fill in our form.
