phone number policy
 

Interested to know what other companies' policies are on giving out their employees personal numbers to every tom dick and harry without first asking permission of the employee:=. I am talking about personal numbers not staff phones.

Isn't there a law against this? I don't think this is acceptable and I would like to take this up with my company so any information/links would be greatly appreciated.

Ta

ML

Good question;

here is what happened at our outfit; (small company) some of our crew would make acquaintances during layovers that they did not want to receive calls from afterwards, so they would give them a phone number from some related company office for said acquaintance to leave a message.

Needless to say, the person at the end of that extension has better things to do then to take personal messages for crew members, therefore, if the recipient of the call is able to determine who the message is for, they will assist by giving out the individuals personal number!

Other then that personal contacts are protected.

fluf

In the UK l understand you are breaking the Data protection act if you give out a personal number.
Some will call the person and tell them that so and so wants to contact you, but that is about it.
I might be however completely way off the mark and apologise if so.

Spotty M you are right - in the UK, the company would be in breach of the DPA and if the employee could be bothered, they could kick up a stink with the company's Data Controller. Particularly after all the recent data security breaches!

I don't know about data protection policies in other countries though... Any case - if there's no permission, it's morally wrong!

Its totally wrong if companies hand out personal contact info to third parties without your permission, but what can you do about it?
If you "have a go" at your manager or HR department it would possibly compromise your career prospects within the company, and you would be labelled a "troublemaker"
If you took it to law, it would be a lot of aggro for probably just a few hundred pounds compensation, the damage is already done and you would definately be labelled a "troublemaker"
Data protection and employment legislation is necessary, good and effective in the "extreme" cases (opportunists aside of course) but in cases such as this its awkward to do anything effective without damaging your own prospects. Unfortunately he who pays the piper still calls the tune to some extent.

Thanks for your replies.

I certainly don't have any plans to damage my own prospects and am not a trouble maker. I have no objection to my number being legitimately given out when on duty and on a need to know basis. What I do object to is my number being given out willy nilly and then being woken up on my day off/rest. A courtesy call from ops asking if it is okay for so and so to have my number and explaining why is all that is all that is required.

My concern is that I am not asked before my number is given out and that I have no control over my personal details. I am getting to the point where I am considering buying a separate phone which I shall switch on only when on duty/standby.