Information System Management and Legal Considerations

Being updated with the relevant legislations is the main responsibility of organisational managers in dealing with the legal aspects of firm’s information system. Moreover, major legal areas of information systems to be addressed by managers include Data Protection Act(1998), appropriate dealings with intellectual properties, abiding to relevant contractual obligations and safeguarding the firm from breaching relevant criminal and civil laws.

Main legal requirements of dealing with information in UK are specified in Data Protection Act (1998) and these are formulated through eight main principles. Neglecting or abusing these principles can result in civil or criminal charges for firms involved.

The present age of information is causing the importance of management information systems to increase at a rapid pace and this tendency is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. Moreover, today firms have an opportunity of increasing the level of their competitiveness through increasing the level of information systems in decision making at strategic and operational levels.

However, there is a set of important security, ethical and legal implications of management information systems discussed in this paper that should not be neglected by organisational managers. Neglecting or abusing these security, ethical and legal aspects of information systems can result in highly negative implications for the company such as damage to the brand image, loss of customer loyalty, or even civil or criminal prosecution in some instances.