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