An Open Editorial on Business Communication Ethics and Client Privacy

This essay delves into the crucial aspects of ethical business communication, emphasizing the significance of client privacy and human dignity. It underscores the importance of maintaining transparency and confidentiality in both personal and professional settings, highlighting client privilege as a protected form of communication. The essay explores the role of human dignity as a fundamental principle, particularly in the context of a globalized world, and its legal implications. It addresses the potential consequences of breaching privacy and confidentiality, such as damage to a company's reputation, and provides examples of unethical activities like unauthorized access to private information. The essay then outlines the benefits of privacy in communications, including promoting honest interactions and protecting intellectual property. It further details steps businesses can take to safeguard client privacy, such as implementing internal privacy policies, conducting privacy impact assessments, and providing employee training. The essay concludes by advocating for the creation of strict privacy policies that define consequences for unethical behavior and emphasize the importance of monitoring communications to prevent misuse. The essay also touches upon various types of business communication and the need for ethical guidelines to prevent misuse, along with the necessity of employee compliance and the overall prioritization of client privacy in business and information systems.

Running head: OPEN EDITORIAL
OPEN EDITORIAL
Name of the Student
Name of the Author
Author Note

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In today’s World, good communication is highly essential in both personal and business
settings. Good business communication depends on maintaining a transparent approach and
ensuring client privacy. Client privilege and confidentiality are examples of a protected
communication (Buzzanell & Lucas, 2013). Ensuring human dignity constitutes one of the
Catholic social principles. Progress of society depends upon the protection of dignity of
individuals belonging to various aspects of society (Donaldson & Belanger, 2012).
In the global World, human dignity becomes relevant because of the fact that it is caused
by historical processes that have helped to create a global society, as well as a necessity for
theoretical understanding. Human dignity is a highly valued and legal principle. It plays a key
role in the law of equality. Human dignity is the basis of human rights (Ife, 2012).
A breach of privacy and confidentiality can affect the reputation of the company, which it
had earned after a long period through hard work. Examples of such breach of confidentiality
occur when a private conversation is made public and taken out of context. Other examples
include the access to private information and using these informations to carry out their own
needs, which are highly unscrupulous. These unscrupulous activities include: eavesdropping,
checking private mails of others, telephone tapping and utilizing someone’s private photos for
own good (Kiser, Porter & Vequist, 2012).
Privacy in communications benefits businesses by helping to promote honest
communications and carrying out good decision-making (Arkin, Ulam & Wagner, 2012). It also
helps to maintain competitive advantage by ensuring prevention of theft of ideas of an
individual. It helps to protect personal information, thereby preserving client, patients, or

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customer’s trust. It also helps in extenuating risks of financial, ethical and legal consequences
because of breach of privacy.
The steps that are taken in business and information systems to protect their client
privacy include familiarizing with the internal privacy policies. Understanding the internal
processes will help in proper management and prevention of privacy risks. These risks could also
include human error, so proper privacy training is carried out to overcome the issues. Presence of
a privacy officer entitled with the task of looking after the proper channeling of company’s
privacy policies. A privacy impact assessment helps to identify the impact on client privacy
when carrying out new projects involving updating of personal information. Only those personal
information are taken, which is absolutely needed. Disclosure of personal information is carried
out only for the sole purpose for which it was collected. However, disclosures can be carried out
when the client has consented or when the Law needs it. Highly sensitive information is provided
high level of protection and client consent is needed for its disclosure, if required. Access to
personal information is limited, in order to prevent unauthorized access by employees. Personal
information is kept highly secure with passwords and it can be removed when the purpose is
complete.
Thus, from what I have learned about human dignity and rights, it can be said that in
order to maintain a balance between employee privacy and unethical behaviour of employees, it
is necessary to create a strict privacy policy that would provide necessary consequences, when
client privacy is at risk. Business communications can be of different types like intra and
interpersonal communication, mass communication, group communication, verbal
communication and non-verbal communication (Conrad & Newberry, 2012). Business
communications like emails, telephone conversations, forums, written communications could be

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unethically used which could impose serious consequences on both the client as well as the
organization. A solution to such problems involve the drafting of policies that provides details
about guidelines relating to business communication ethics. Moreover, privacy policies will
ensure monitoring communications in order to prevent misuse and other unscrupulous activities.
Company expectations should be described in detail to the employees like business
communication ethics, acceptable behaviors, proper and safe handling of personal information of
clients and disclosure of client information only when consent is provided by the client.
Moreover, the employees should also be noted that their communications are monitored to
prevent any privacy breach relating to customer dealings and communications. Moreover, the
consequences following any unethical behavior should also be defined to the employees.
Employee compliance is needed to determine whether they comply to being monitored or not.
Thus, maintenance of client privacy should be the foremost purpose in the field of business and
information systems.

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Conrad, D., & Newberry, R. (2012). Identification and instruction of important business
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Donaldson, L. P., & Belanger, K. (2012). Catholic social teaching: Principles for the service and
justice dimensions of social work practice and education. Social Work and
Christianity, 39(2), 119.
Ife, J. (2012). Human rights and social work: Towards rights-based practice. Cambridge
University Press.
Kiser, A. I., Porter, T., & Vequist, D. (2012). Employee monitoring and ethics: Can they co-
exist?. In Current Trends and Future Practices for Digital Literacy and Competence (pp.
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