Maintaining Privacy in the Workplace

Many employees do not realize the importance of protecting their information and data at work. You will spend 1/3 of your day working so building relationships with colleagues and managers is a very important aspect of your work life. While stepping away from your desk for a moment to grab a cup of coffee or have a chat with your supervisor, someone could be at your desk rummaging through papers or searching your computer for personal information. Everyday disgruntled employees are looking for a way to sabotage the company or their colleagues, and accessing sensitive documents or an unlocked computer is the easiest way to accomplish this. As an employee it is easy to take your workplace privacy for granted and assume that no one would do that to you, but yet it happens every day because many fail to take some preemptive steps to make sure they protect themselves and their workstation.

Complex passwords are one of the most important aspects of protecting a work environment. Many people do not realize how easy it is to guess their password and end up creating passwords that include a birth date, phone number, spouse or children’s names/birth dates, and other such information. Using this information makes it very easy for someone to guess the password and infiltrate a system since it is information that could be found through a quick scan of your workstation. Once someone has access to your computer, there is no limit to the damage they can do. A good password should be complex and use both letters and numbers. Many passwords are also case sensitive or allow special characters, such as @#$%, allowing users to create passwords that are difficult to crack. If the password is too complex and difficult to remember it is good to hide it in a location that is locked, or have it with you when you are away from the office, instead of leaving it in an unlocked drawer or any other obvious location. This same concept applies for any loose paperwork sitting on a desk. All company-related documents and any other important information should always be locked away in a desk drawer or a filing cabinet.

Another way to protect your privacy at work is to always lock your computer. Even if you get up to close a window or get a cup of coffee, it is important to lock your computer. This is a very simple process to do and yet it is one of the most overlooked methods for protecting your work station. Once locked, the user must enter their password to unlock the computer and gain access to the system. Seeing a locked computer is a great deterrence and will make a mischievous colleague look elsewhere. Along with locking your system, it is important to have some kind of lock on your PC/laptop itself. Many people find it is more convenient to own a laptop over a desktop because of its portability, but forget that it can just as easily be picked up by someone else in the office. Every laptop comes standard with a Security Lock Hole and allows a user to connect a laptop with a locking cable connected to their work station. This makes it difficult for someone to grab your laptop and walk away with it unless they manage to snap off the lock, ultimately damaging the laptop and bringing a lot of unnecessary attention.

Internet privacy is also another important aspect of protecting your working environment. Every IT department closely monitors internet usage to ensure every employee is following their code of conduct or corporate policy. Of course this does not mean visiting website that would be considered illegal or in bad taste but many IT departments block every website that, in their opinion, is not directly work-related. If you find a site that you need to finish a project or work on a report then you have to fill out a form and wait for IT to process it and decide if you really do need to access this site or not, leaving your career in their hands. This problem is easily addressed by using an anonymous proxy when surfing the internet. More traditional proxies mask your IP address but some of the better ones will also encrypt your connection and hide the domain you’re a surfing. This means that’s any IT department trying to log your records will see a different site than the one you are really surfing and will not be able to spy on your data. On the other hand, many companies set up anonymous proxies as a method for employees to leave anonymous comments and recommendations without fear of retribution. The company will set up a website and allow employees to log on via proxy server to complete surveys and such, but still remain anonymous.

Any number of situations could arise, ranging from colleague sabotage to theft, so it is important to always keep your information, both physical and virtual, protected. Always keeping your documents locked away and your computer protected are two very important steps in maintaining your workplace privacy. When surfing the web it is important to use a proxy server so that your information is kept private and your internet connection is encrypted and secured. Your first line of defense against any privacy attack is common sense. Ultimately it takes a conscious effort to maintain workplace privacy and you should take proactive measures to secure your information and data.