Slabobbin
07-28-2004, 01:15 PM
As most of you know I work at a water utility. To give some background (because it could be relevant to your opinion, I don't know) we recieve no government funds or tax money. We are "non-profit" meaning that everything we make goes right back in to the business. We aren't privately owned but we aren't really a co-op either. We are chartered as a "utility district".
I have learned (much to my disliking) that all of our records are public record meaning that anyone could walk in at any time and request to review our records. The only "rights" we have regarding this are that we can put a time on it (like we can say "We are busy right now you will have to come back at 4:00 when we can have the records ready) and we can charge a "copy fee" if they want copies.
Now if it is to do with how the company spends its money I have no problem with them reviewing that. If they are paying water rates I fully support their right to see where that money is going and how it is being used.
Now when you get into the customer files that gets a little iffy to me. We have social security numbers, place of employment, private phone numbers, etc. listed in our customer records. I don't think they would appreciate the public having access to that.
The one that bothers me the most (because it affects me ) is that they have access to the employee files. Now a customer can refuse to give a social security number or phone number as an employee we cannot. We have to put our social security number on our W-2's and those go in our employee files. They also see our age, home address and phone number, resume, and anything else that is in our file.
So basically a crazy customer could come in upset over something, request to see our records and get our personal information and really do some damage (identity theft, stalking, harassing phone calls, etc.)
How do you feel about this law as a customer? As a customer do you feel this is your "right"? Would you feel safe working in a place where such information was public knowledge and you couldn't do a thing about it?
I have learned (much to my disliking) that all of our records are public record meaning that anyone could walk in at any time and request to review our records. The only "rights" we have regarding this are that we can put a time on it (like we can say "We are busy right now you will have to come back at 4:00 when we can have the records ready) and we can charge a "copy fee" if they want copies.
Now if it is to do with how the company spends its money I have no problem with them reviewing that. If they are paying water rates I fully support their right to see where that money is going and how it is being used.
Now when you get into the customer files that gets a little iffy to me. We have social security numbers, place of employment, private phone numbers, etc. listed in our customer records. I don't think they would appreciate the public having access to that.
The one that bothers me the most (because it affects me ) is that they have access to the employee files. Now a customer can refuse to give a social security number or phone number as an employee we cannot. We have to put our social security number on our W-2's and those go in our employee files. They also see our age, home address and phone number, resume, and anything else that is in our file.
So basically a crazy customer could come in upset over something, request to see our records and get our personal information and really do some damage (identity theft, stalking, harassing phone calls, etc.)
How do you feel about this law as a customer? As a customer do you feel this is your "right"? Would you feel safe working in a place where such information was public knowledge and you couldn't do a thing about it?