Data Protection Policy
It is a legal requirement for the CKS Group to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. It is also CKS policy to ensure that every employee maintains the confidentiality of any personal data held by the company in whatever form.
Data Protection Principles
The CKS Group needs to keep certain information about its employees, customers and suppliers for financial and commercial reasons and to enable us to monitor performance, to ensure legal compliance and for health and safety purposes. To comply with the law, information must be collected and used fairly, stored safely and not disclosed to any other person unlawfully. This means that we must comply with the Data Protection Principles set out in the Data Protection Act 1998.
These principles require that personal data must be:
- obtained fairly and lawfully and shall not be processed unless certain conditions are met.
- obtained for specified and lawful purposes and not further processed in a matter incompatible with that purpose.
- adequate, relevant and not excessive.
- accurate and up to date.
- kept for no longer than necessary.
- processed in accordance with data subjects' rights.
- protected by appropriate security.
- not transferred to a country outside the European Union without adequate protection.
In processing or using any personal information, employees must ensure that they follow these principles at all times.
Data Protection co-ordinator
To ensure the implementation of this policy, CKS has designated the Human Resources Director as the company's data protection co-ordinator. All enquiries relating to the holding of personal data should be referred to her in the first instance.
Notification of data held
Anyone is entitled to know:
- what personal information CKS holds about them and the purpose for which it is used.
- how to gain access to it.
- how it is kept up to date.
- what the company is doing to comply with its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.
This information is available from Sharon Stephens.
Individual Responsibility
All employees are responsible for:
- checking that any information they provide in connection with their employment is accurate.
- notifying CKS of any changes to information they have provided, for example change of address.
- ensuring that they are familiar with and follow the data protection policy.
Any breach of the data protection policy, either deliberate or through negligence, may lead to disciplinary action being taken and could in some cases result in a criminal prosecution.
Data Security
All employees are responsible for ensuring that:
- any personal data that they hold, whether in electronic or paper format, is kept securely.
- personal information is not disclosed either verbally or in writing, accidentally or otherwise to any unauthorised third party.
- items that are marked 'personal' or 'private and confidential', or which appear to be of a personal nature, are opened by the addressee only.
- Employees should not use their office address for matters that are not work-related.
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