Employees and human resources in general are the most valued assets of any enterprise, no matter how highly technical or automated the process of business is or is going to be in the future. For some time now companies have been placing a value on their human resources and this value finds itself as an asset on their balance sheets. Given this, it needs no emphasis regarding how valued employee data is and how extremely important is it to safeguard employee data.
Now, here is a tricky situation - to know your employees well, to ascertain their background and credentials, to ensure you hire the right candidate, one who has no bad or questionable past - you end up collecting a really large amount of their personal information. Next, to optimize conservation and access to such data you have been maintaining them in digital format on your computer data storage systems. The larger the data, the higher your responsibility of safeguarding it. I say this since a combination of a person's name or even initials of the first name, second name in full and their social security number or driver's licence number or a passport number is sufficient for obtaining further information on that person which could jeopardize the safety of that person and their family. Bank accounts, medical records and other sensitive data can be accessed just like that. Certainly a scary scenario, is it not?
Depending upon how strongly you protect your employee data, it could be highly vulnerable for access by unauthorized parties and much worse for misuse. Then there is that other issue called privacy and laws that enforce it. Most jurisdictions have laws that demand you preserve the privacy of a person; preserve data, keep information safe and secure, relating to your employees. Any breach or non-compliance with these laws attract stiff penalties and in repeat cases, surely, imprisonment.
Now, let us look at how anyone could illegally access information that is in your custody. One of the common ways is to steal it while on the job; an internal person does it either by himself or by bribing the person in custody of information or by hacking into your files, systems and servers. Other not so common ways include rummaging through personal mail or trash thrown out by housekeeping.
What data classifies as information that should be secured? Full name, house address, telephone numbers, identification numbers such as the ones on a passport, driver's licence, social security number, date of birth, bank account information, medical information and personal statistics - oh, the list can go on.
So, how do you safeguard employee data? Here are some thoughts -
- Firstly, isolate and store sensitive employee data in as few places as possible; render access at defined levels, breaking the information into various storages and allowing access only depending upon need to know.
- Next, get a highly secure data encryption technology and ensure to update it regularly. List people who will have access to particular levels of information and they can have it only with sufficient identification and password control.
- Talk to your technology providers and have them install various levels of authentication - time based algorithm access coupled with a strong password protection is one good example. The algorithm code can be generated through a digital security device.
- Install time-out functions for remote access from anyone outside the local area network.
- Finally, look up your local laws for compliance requirements in this regard. This should help safeguard employee data.
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