Data Mining of Customer Information by IT Workers - Essay Example

? Data Mining Information by IT Workers Module Data Mining Information by IT Workers Nowadays, companies have various ways of collect personal data from their customers as they use the Automated Teller Machines, browse certain web sites, purchase items, and use their credit or debit cards to make transactions. The companies collect data for analysis in order to generate information that helps in customer profiling, which is used in marketing the company’s products and enhancing the customer’s experience. The process of analyzing the customer’s data to seek for hidden or new patterns and practices is called data mining (Shermach, 2006). Information Technology workers are tasked with the process of data mining in various organizations. This means that they handle huge quantities of data that includes personal information, which is sensitive in nature. It may include the names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, home addresses, educational qualifications and national identity numbers. Some of this data may be sourced from other companies thus violating other people’s privacy rights. There are many privacy concerns that are brought about by data mining, as the subjects have no control over their personal information. Privacy rights are being eroded due to the advanced practices that are currently used in Data collection and mining. Secondly, the customers are not sure if the data collector will make certain that the sensitive information remains secure and undisclosed from unauthorized access, and protected from unethical employees who may tamper with it (Payne and Landry, 2012). This essay concentrates on the privacy policy that IT workers need to follow to ensure ethical conduct is maintained when data mining for an organization. The Privacy Policy Every organization dealing with data mining or any other activity should have a privacy policy in place. The policy should be adhered to as it grants the clients control over the utilization of their personal information. Whenever the organization needs the customers to provide personal information even on their websites, a privacy policy should be provided to the customers. Having the privacy policy in place is not enough since one should ensure that all the employees know what it details and follow it to the letter. The privacy policy should be aligned to the privacy laws provided by the federal government. These laws are different depending on the ages of the customers and the organization’s dealings. Children under the age of thirteen have different laws from the other people. Organizations have to ensure that their privacy policies take into account such details when establishing their privacy policies (AAF, 2013). The privacy policy must be comprehensible, legible and accessible to all the customers before they give any information. Many organizations are using the internet to collect information through their webpages. These websites must provide the organization’s privacy policy before the customer fills in any information. The policy must state to the customer the kind of information being gathered, what ways it will be utilized, the person collecting the information, whether it will be distributed to other companies and what will be shared. The policy also assure the customers that their information will be protected from unauthorized parties, give options for the individuals who wish to limit the information given and show how the organization will impose the policy. The people providing the information should be permitted to determine if they want to give the information or not (Christen, Alfano, Bangerter and Lapsley, 2013). As an IT employee, one has the advantages of working for an organization that meets all the privacy requirements set by the government. This shows that honesty is primal in the organization. In order to get employment an individual has to fill in a lot of personal information. One trusts the company to keep his or her information secret without disclosing it to other people. Working in a company that ensure that every employee and customer’s rights to privacy are respected, gives the IT worker confidence that his or her personal information will not be misused either. This promotes trust within the workforce and gives the employees a sense of loyalty to the organization (Dillon, Hamilton, Thomas and Usry, 2008). An organization that ensures that all its employees follow the privacy policy helps to keep them out of trouble with the law enforcement agencies. Once the concerned authorities get a claim that an organization has breached the rules set in the privacy policy, the employee responsible is charged together with the organization. To prevent this scenario from happening, the organization ensures that the employees follow the privacy policy to the letter. Therefore, the efforts by the organization’s managers to follow the privacy policy strictly are not only meant to protect the organization, but the employee as well (Payne and Landry, 2012). Positive consequences of the privacy policy to the organization The privacy policy can act as a marketing strategy. Organizations that display a privacy policy are able to attract many customers, as they are sure that in case they have to give some personal information, the company will ensure that it is safely kept and used according to their needs. A privacy policy helps strengthen the relationship ties between the customers and the company (Christen, Alfano, Bangerter and Lapsley, 2013). This is because the privacy policy is like a promise, which the customers trust the organization will keep. Ensuring that the employees observe the organization’s privacy policy helps the customers gain trust in the organization. The organization gains a good reputation from implementing a privacy policy, thus increasing the amount of business transacted (Payne and Landry, 2012). Enforcing the privacy policy properly and with seriousness shows the employees that their personal information is well guarded. This helps in retaining the employees thus having a workforce that is competent and loyal to the company. This can only translate into the growth of the organization. The privacy policy saves the company a lot of money from lawsuits (Wel and Royakkers, 2004). If customers realize that a company is taking their personal information without their consent, they are justified to inform the relevant authorities and this obviously results into new expenses. The cost of lawyers and the compensation would bring extra costs to the company, thus lowering the profits. Adopting a good privacy policy is essential for the company and its employees (AAF, 2013). Negative consequences of the privacy policy to the organization The privacy policy also has a few shortfalls. First, it is expensive to develop. It takes a lot of resources and time to come up with a privacy policy that will beneficial to an organization. The organization must be ready to hire the services of various experts including consultants, lawmakers and IT employees who will prepare and discuss the relevance of the contents in the privacy policy. All these experts need to be paid as they render their services to the organization. The resources, for example, accessories, computers, and computer programmes needed are also expensive. Second, certain changes need to be made regularly on the privacy policy, which may require the organization to use more money to update the required changes (Shermach, 2006). Conflicts arising between organizational and personal ethical beliefs imposed by the privacy policy The privacy policy may bring about some conflicts between the organizational and the person’s ethics. One conflict arising from the privacy policy can be observed where an IT worker is required by the policy to take personal information on a client even when it is unnecessary. In some data mining processes, the name or the physical address may be unnecessary when collecting the customer’s data but the organization needs the IT employee to take this data as well. In the employee’s mind, the ethics of honesty are being broken when collecting this data but since the organization requires it, he or she has to deal with the conflict and do what is required by the organization (Wel and Royakkers, 2004). IT employees may use the company’s data to predict the behavior of customers towards a new enterprise that they may have started. The privacy policy may be against this decision but the fact that the employees have the resources to predict if their businesses will fail or succeed results into a conflict. If they uphold the organizational beliefs then the business might fail and only have their ethics to blame. On the other hand, their personal goals are on the line and they need to break the organization’s conduct to achieve (Wel and Royakkers, 2004). Does your organizational policy imply a commitment to ethical professional conduct of its members? Considering that the privacy policy helps in verifying the credibility of the organization, the managers ensure that it is followed to the letter. It also indicates that the organization meets the regulations put in place by the body enforcing privacy. Therefore, the organization implies a commitment to the stipulated code of conduct. The employees must be cautious when asking customers to provide personal information. They must let the clients give the information freely without being pressured. When collecting information online, the organization has clearly placed its privacy policy on the web page. The customers are supposed to read the terms and conditions stipulated by the document before they provide any information. The client should refrain from giving any personal information if the rules are inapplicable (Shermach, 2006). What happens when your policy is not followed? As seen in the essay, the organization allocates many resources and a sizeable amount of time to the process of establishing a privacy policy. It takes experts to help align the privacy policy with the code of conduct and that is why every employee is required to abide by it. If an employee fails to follow the privacy policy, the law enforcement agencies will take legal steps towards the company, thus incurring extra costs and even wasting resources and time in court proceedings. Therefore, the company will take stringent measures to punish employees who do not follow the privacy policy by either imposing penalties or terminating their employment (AAF, 2013). Conclusion In order to ensures that correct predictions are made by correctly establishing and identifying patterns and relationships, companies need to carry out data mining successfully. This implies that they need to collect correct data from the customers. Therefore, many companies would be willing to take up some measures in order to obtain correct data from customers. By implementing privacy policies, organizations can easily obtain data and ensure that the customer’s rights to privacy are enhanced (Shermach, 2006). References American Advertising Federation. (2013, March 6). Privacy Policies. AAF-. Retrieved December 12, 2013, from http://www.aaf.org/default.asp?id=170 Christen, M., Alfano, M., Bangerter, E., & Lapsley, D. (2013). Ethical issues of ‘morality mining’ Moral identity as a focus of data mining. Journal of Business and Psychology, 1(1), 2-19. Dillon, T. W., Hamilton, A. J., Thomas, D. S., & Usry, M. L. (2008). The Importance of Communicating Workplace Privacy Policies. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 20(2), 119-139. Payne, D., & Landry, B. (2012). A Composite Strategy for the Legal and Ethical Use of Data Mining. International Journal of Management, Knowledge and Learning, 1(1), 27–43. Shermach, K. (2006, August 25). Data Mining: Where Legality and Ethics Rarely Meet. E Commerce Times: E-Business Means Business. Retrieved December 11, 2013, from http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/52616.html Wel, L. V., & Royakkers, L. (2004). Ethical Issues in Web Data Mining. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(2), 129-140. Read More