Evaluation--Business&Employment

Evaluation--Business and Employment

The issue of privacy and culture is all about privacy laws in different countries under different culture environments. This is an issue because business companies from different countries will have conflicts on the privacy laws and the amount of data that may be given out to different sources can cause a conflict. Every country has different privacy laws which can become an issue when different countries are doing business with other countries. Businesses in one country will only follow their particular Data Privacy Act as they are in that country and they will not be flexible about it. This can be an issue as when doing businesses with companies from other countries as different countries have different laws for privacy and companies may not want to give out their information to a large extent. Here information is given to different companies around the world and when information is handed to different companies it can be leaked according to the country’s privacy laws. This can cause problems because information can be misused against the company.

The release of sensitive data is a concern of everyone and businesses itself. Businesses store a large amount if sensitive data in databases which could include customer information, employee information or information about the firm itself. However, if this data is released into the public it could cause concerns to many stakeholders, as businesses communicate with more than one stakeholder and has information about most of them. For example, if an employee’s information was released into the public it could cause them psychological stress, because no employee would want the public to view their salaries or other information, as it may be a very personal thing in some cultures which relates us back to the earlier issue of privacy and culture. Additionally, another concern for people is that if businesses who have sensitive data about them is that businesses may decide to sell this data onto third parties. For example, a supermarket could collect customer information through their loyalty cards and then sell this data onto third parties. The consequences of this could be that the customers are receiving unwanted advertisements by these third parties as they have studied the customers shopping habits, and in order to promote their products, they can send out advertisements to the customers.

Ultimately, businesses need to be aware of what is happening with all this sensitive data, as it holds responsibility to keep the data safe and not release it the public or sell it onto third parties. Businesses always need to be alert of what is done with this data, who is looking after it. However most businesses have taken some step to protect this information, whether it is to compose policies that all members/ employees of the business have to agree to and make sure that the data is kept safe and encrypt any type of sensitive data. Nevertheless, some customers may not mind their information being released to third parties so at times when they sign up for loyalty cards there is a statement in the application where customers can choose to ‘opt in’ or ‘opt out’ in giving their data to third parties. However, sometimes businesses are smart and don’t give us the choice but yet they have to agree since they are also benefiting from getting loyalty cards, and this is when the issue arises since the information being released is sensitive and the person’s whose information is being released don’t even know that their information is being released, which is against ones privacy since the information is personal. By Nehal and Sue