With blogging and social networking sites becoming increasingly popular, Connecting for Health (CfH) has issued new guidance in the Information Governance Toolkit for NHS organisations outlining how to use social media safely.
CfH cites the following risks associated with using social media:
Breach of confidentiality - Identity theft
- Legal liabilities from offensive posts
- Damaged reputation
- Virus attacks
- Bandwidth overload
- Employee intimidation
To overcome these threats, the guidance advises NHS organisations to perform the following checks before using social media:
- Verify if the organisation has a relevant policy and the extent to which this applies
- Ensure that social networking and blogging risks are considered within the overall approach to information risk assessment and management
- When registering with a website, understand what you are signing up to and importantly what security and confidentially claims and undertakings exist
- Watch for add-ons i.e. additional features or applications that change the terms and conditions of what you have signed up for, or that may require changes to the security settings of your devices
- Withhold personal details that you do not want to be made public
- Avoid loading work related information to blogging or social networking sites
- Examine carefully any email coming from social networking sites or contacts as these may be unreliable containing malicious code or be spoofed to look as though they are authentic
To read the guidance in full, please click here