p5 p6 legislations pdf
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Legislations
Legislations are laws that a business must follow and have to operate by.
These laws are made by a governing body through legislations and they are
to protect employees, customers and information. Legislations outline the
responsibility of a business. Legislations strongly affect how Tesco operates.
Complying with these legislations sometimes mean extra work and costs for
the company but they are necessary.
The main legislation acts are
Data Protection Act /1998/
- The data protection was made to regulate how organizations,
businesses or any third party is allowed to handle information
about an individual. The main intent is to prevent the misuse or
abuse of information about one by anyone without permission.
Freedom of Information Act /2000/
- The freedom of information act was made so that public authorities
are obliged to provide access to information. Public authorities
must publish certain information about their activities, and
members of the public have got the right to request information
from them.
Computer Misuse Act /1990/
- The computer misuse act is to protect the computer systems against
unauthorised access.
Human Right Act /1998/
- The Human right Act allows people to be able to defend their rights in
UK courts and makes sure that everyone is treated equally by
organisations, Government, Police and local councils.
Data protection act 1998
The data protection act gives customers the right to know what information
is stored about them by Tesco. The data protection act also makes sure that
Tesco “Only holds information that is lawful, used for limited, specifically
stated purposes, relevant and not excessive, accurate, not kept for longer
than absolutely necessary, handled according to people`s data protection
rights, kept safe and secure and is not transferred outside the UK without
adequate protection. “
For example if someone has registered on Tesco’s website by giving their e-
mail addresses Tesco is not able to forward that information to 3rd parties
without the permission of the customer.
Human rights Act.
The human’s right act states that people living in the UK have got
basic rights that cannot be taken away from them. Tesco has to
comply with this act.
Freedom from slavery and forced labour - Meaning that If an
employee does not want to work for Tesco he has got the right to
leave the company without being punished or questioned for it.
Freedom of thought, belief and expression – This part of the act
makes sure that no employee or customer gets treated differently
because of their religions or beliefs. E.g Tesco cannot reject an
employee for him
being Christian,
Muslim or any
other religion.
Here is Tesco’s Human rights
policy, and how they traeat
therir staff in their stores
Freedom of information act
The freedom of information act gives people the right to know
what information is stored about them by organizations and
businesses such as Tesco.
Tesco holds a variety of information about its customers as they
would like to increase the shopping experience as much as possible.
This information that is stored by Tesco must be provided upon
request.
Eg. If a customer wants to know if Tesco has information about his
e-mail address or address, he can simply just call or e-mail the
company and Tesco will have no other option but to provide the
information.
Computer misuse act 1990
The computer misuse act was brought into use by the British government in 1990 to protect
people, organizations and businesses against unauthorised access to their computer systems.
Companies such as Tesco spent years and large amount of funds developing and improving their
systems. This includes the information they store about customers, their stock managing and
other software. If a hacker attacked their system, it would surely have serious consequences
E.g. Tesco stores more than 42 TB of data about their customers including their shopping habits,
card details, addresses and other personal information. It took Tesco years of hard work to collect
it and it is without doubt one of the most valuable intellectual assets of the company. If someone
broke into their system and just simply deleted this information, it would deprive Tesco from this
huge benefit against its competitors, and it would certainly be hard to put a price tag on the
damages.
To prevent this from happening the computer misuse act tries to threaten the potential attackers
by relatively long imprisonment and incredibly high fees for the crime.
Tesco takes extra care of their computers and the information stored on them by making backups
as many times as possible, and having fully independent departments working, to prevent
unauthorised individuals from access.
Ethical issues
Every organisation have got rules and codes of practice for the way they operate inside of the
business. Tesco tries its best to avoid operating outside these rules, but unfortunately sometimes
it still happens. These rules are there to state what is and what is not acceptable by the
organization in many fields such as:
Security of information
Health and safety issues
Whistle blowing
Use of internet an e mail
Security of information
At a company such as Tesco it’s unavoidable to provide employees with information that should be
kept secure and not publicized. This includes software codes, information about customers, data
about the company`s financial situation etc…
If other organizations such as Tesco`s competitors got this information they could cause serious
damages to the company this is why Tesco does its best to avoid it.
There are different ways of doing this, such as:
When the company hires someone for a position where the employee is going acquire this kind of
knowledge of the company, they write a contract that prevents them from passing it on to a 3rd
party.
Tesco treats its employees the best way possible so they stay loyal to the company, and not sell the
information to anyone.
Despite all this, it has happened and probably will happen again. In that case Tesco does everything
in its power to regain the information and prevent other companies to use it against them, and for
the contract breaker to be punished the way it was stated in the contract that he signed.
Health and safety issues
Tesco has really strict health and safety policies made to be able to provide a safe working
environment to its employees. This
policy clearly outlines what the
employees should take extra care of
such as the following:
If every employee works by these rules,
the probability of injures and other
health and safety issues is reduced to
an acceptably low level.
Whistle blowing
Whistle blowing is the act of a worker reporting a suspected, or witnessed wrongdoing at work. This
is officially called “making a disclosure in the public interest”. A worker can report things that aren't
right, are illegal or if anyone at work is neglecting their duties, including: someone's health and safety
is in danger.
One example of whistle blowing at
Tesco happened on 19/09/2014 when
an accountant reported a £250M profit
overstatement. The company started
getting investigated and the report
proved to be right.
Use of e-mail
Tesco has got strict code of practice
on how the internet and e-mail should
be used by its employees at their workplace. E-mail is really important for Tesco as they use it on
daily bases and if it’s not used right it could interfere with how effective it is. E-mail is the main type
of communication between colleagues, departments and for everything else at the company.
Everyone who works in one of the offices of Tesco has got a work e-mail address made for them by
the company. And it should not be used for any other purposes. E-mail is used in many ways, from
just simply discussing projects to as a reminder of meetings, that’s why it is so important that
everyone uses their email accounts as intended.
Bibliography
http://phone-shop.tesco.com/tesco-internet-access-code-of-practice.aspx
http://www.retail-week.com/sectors/food/tesco-whistleblowers-concerns-over-250m-profit-
overstatement-initially-ignored/5064643.article
https://www.gov.uk/data-protection/the-data-protection-act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Act_of_1974