Every member of your company works together as a team. They collaborate and communicate in order to build the best product possible and to get the job done. All of these employees, however, have confidential data that needs to be protected. Their health information, job history, reviews, and other documents should not be open to prying eyes. So, how do you maintain confidentiality when you are all working together on the same network?
First and foremost, your Human Resources department needs to be able to access data securely. While it can be kept on the same servers as other company data, you need to ensure that the access to it is secure and very restrictive. Not only is protecting your employees’ privacy the right thing to do – it’s also the law. Making sure you protect the data will not only keep your employees happy, but it can keep you from being subject to fines or a lawsuit.
The printers your HR staff uses should also be off limits to the rest of the company, as well. These printers should be kept in a secure location so that if documents are printed, no one outside of HR can accidentally come across them. Other employees should not be able to use these printers for their own jobs for this same reason. Even if personal information is divulged on accident, it was your duty to keep it secure, and a breach can have serious consequences.
These days, it’s important to take the time to keep personnel information safe. You trust your HR people to protect the data, but they can’t do it without a little help from you.