2.6 Email Policy

Contents

1.	Purpose
2.	Scope
	2.1	General Principles
	2.2	Use of Email
	2.3	Confidentiality
	2.4	Inappropriate Use
	2.5	Monitoring

1. Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that employees of the Group and its subsidiaries understand the way in which electronic mail (email) should be used in the organisation. It aims to ensure that email is used effectively for its intended purpose without infringing legal requirements or creating unnecessary business risk.

2. Scope

All employees including contractors and temporary Staff are subject to this policy. Failure to comply may lead to disciplinary action, including dismissal. At the same time, your conduct and/or action(s) may be unlawful or illegal and you may be personally liable.

2.1 General principles

The company provides an email system to support its activities and access to this system is granted to company employees on this basis. Emails sent or received on the company email system are not private property; they form part of the administrative records of the company.

Incidental and occasional personal use of the corporate email system is permitted, subject to the restrictions contained in this policy. Any personal use of email is expected to be on the employees own time and is not to interfere with the persons job responsibilities. Personal use of the email system must not be detrimentally affect the job responsibilities of other employees, disrupt the system and/or harm the company’s reputation.

2.2 Use of Email

Care should be taken when using email because messages are perceived to be less formal than paper based communication and there is a tendency to be lax about their content. Bear in mind that all expressions of fact, intention and opinion via email can be held against you and/or the company in the same way as verbal and written expressions.

Formal methods of email distribution must not be used for sending emails that are not relevant to the business.

Access to all email internet sites (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo mail etc.) is restricted due to the potential threat of viruses being spread and infecting the network.

2.3 Confidentiality

All information relating to our customers and the business operation of the company is confidential. You are expected to treat electronic information with the same care as you would paper based information which is confidential. Keep all such information secure, use it only for the purpose(s) intended and do not disclose the same to any unauthorised third party (which may sometimes include other employees of the company).

• Keep passwords safe. Do not disclose them to anyone.
• If a document is highly confidential or sensitive in nature, where possible, you should store it in a secure directory. Do not forward, send or in any way disseminate such information that may compromise the company.
• Maintain confidentiality by not forwarding or sharing any client information that would violate the Data Protection Act or industry guidelines.
• Return any message received that was not intended for another recipient. Delete any copies of misdirected messages. An incorrectly addressed message should only be forwarded to the intended recipient if the identity of the recipient is known and certain.
• Verify the recipients of the email are approved to receive the information contained in the email, to avoid any breach of confidence.

2.4 Inappropriate Use

Exercise due care when writing an email to avoid being rude or unnecessarily terse and ensure that your message meets the standards of professionalism the company expects of your position. Do not make any statements on your own behalf or on behalf of the company, which do or may defame, libel or damage the reputation of any person.

You should not engage in any activity that is illegal, distasteful or likely to have negative repercussions for the company. You must not upload, download, use, retain, distribute or disseminate any images, text, materials or software which:

• Are or might be considered to be indecent, obscene, pornographic OR ILLEGAL
• Are or might be offensive or abusive in that its context is or could be considered to be a personal attack, rude or personally critical, sexist, racist, or generally distasteful.
• Encourage or promote activities which make unproductive use of the company time.
• Involve activities outside of the scope of your responsibilities – for example, unauthorised selling/advertising of goods and services.
• Might affect or have the potential to affect the performance of damage to overload the companies system. Network and/or external communications in any way.
• Might be defamatory or incur liability in the part of the company or adversely impact on the image of the company
• Would be a breach of copyright or license provision with respect to both programs and data
• You cannot or are not prepared to account for.

The following activities are expressly forbidden:

• The introduction of any form of computer virus
• Seeking to gain access to restricted areas of the network or other hacking activities.
• Forgery or attempts to read other users’ mail without their express permission.

Email messages that have been deleted from the system can be traced and retrieved. Therefore, all persons having a part in creating or forwarding any offending email can be identified. Emails, both in hard copy and in electronic form, are admissible in a Court of law.

2.5 Monitoring

All child care resources, including computers, email and voicemail are provided exclusively for business purposes. At any time and without prior notice the Continuum Group maintains the right and ability to examine any systems and inspect and review any and all data recorded in those systems. Any information stored on a computer, whether the information is contained on a hard drive, computer disk or in any other manner may be subject to scrutiny by the company. This examination helps ensure compliance with internal policies and the law. It supports the performance of internal investigations and assists the management of information systems.

In order to ensure compliance to this policy, the company may employ monitoring software to check on the use and content of email to ensure that there are no serious breaches of this policy. The company specifically reserves the right for authorised personnel to access, retrieve, read and delete any communication that is created on, received through or sent in the email system, to assure compliance with all company policies. Such monitoring will be used for legitimate purposes only.

End