Should employers be required to BLOCK all employees personal information from all employees?

Question

Should employers be held accountable or liable for not practicing safe employee personal information measurements? For example, a employee works at a bank where there is heavy sensitive information.

All information is accessible to even all employees, including the employee's own files. The employee unknowingly opens a file while searching for a consumer's information from a pool search which it cross-references with a same/similar name of an another associate.

There are over 75,000 associates worldwide who work at the same company. Should the employee be held accountable for actions leading up to disciplanary action and/or termination??

This would include all employees files.

Star, (the poster) No associate SHOULD have access to your file period. If they want information, such as to call you, they need to head to HR department, not go to another associate for that information. There is such a law in Privacy Policy Act.

To Star (the poster),

I am sorry to say, I disagree with you in regards to your post.

All companies should not allow associates to access employee/associates files period. The only people that should have access is the Human Resources Department whether it is personal or business. If the employee is upset and wants to speak to a certain individual whom they CAN TRUST, then arrangements should be made.

I know I would not want any co-worker to be fired over opening MY file just because they are trying to do their jobs in searching for a customer who happens to have the same name as I do.

For example, my name is Mary Smith, when you, as Jane Doe, do file search, it will pull up all Mary Smiths from a pool search. You, as Jane Doe, have to open EACH file, to find that very Mary Smith who is inquiring of her file. Let's say there is 200 Mary Smiths, there should be only 199 Mary Smith files available to ALL associates. I, Mary Smith, as employee, should be BLOCKED.

And yes, someone was FIRED for opening MY file.

Did I agree with it? NO. That information should have been BLOCKED! It was the associate's fault for accessing my file. It is the company's fault for not keeping a tight lid on my records.

I meant to say, It was NOT the associate's fault. It was the company's fault.

Answer 1

yes, personal info should be completely confidential

Answer 2

If I have your question correct, you are asking should a company that handles financial information for consumers (in this instance it sounds like all consumers) block the records that are for consumers that work at that company. The answer to that is no, not if the same records are available for every other consumer. If this is a company that needs access and has it legally they should not be 'blocking' any records. For example, if I worked for a credit reporting agency, I would not expect my records to be blocked from other employees of that agency. That said, I have worked for companies with info access like that, and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM has had a rule that states something to the effect of you cannot access a file without a LEGITIMATE BUSINESS REASON. A good example of that is the man I know that got fired for going into the customer database to get a phone number for another employee who told him call me (there were witnesses) and she complained since she did not give him the number he accessed her records. Boom, terminated for violation of policy.
I hope this answers your quesitons, if this is a situation that has happened to you, your HR dept can certainly clarify any rules for you.
Good luck!

Answer 3

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