We are about to give all employees access to the internet, as well as their own e-mail addresses. Can anyone tell me if you have done the same and recap any compliance risks I should be concerned about. Do you think there is any issues with printing employee's e-mail address on their business cards? We will not be listing all employee e-mail address on our website. Thanks.

Do you have an Internet Acceptable Use Policy?

You have liability issues as they leave digital footprints all over cyber-creation and could get into trouble in many, many ways.

There are issues to address, formally or informally as to how and when it is used and whether or not you monitor use of the Net.

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Andy Zavoina
Opinions stated are not necessarily that of my employer.

Yes, we do have an Internet Usage Policy, which all employees have already signed. We list what is acceptable usage of the internet, etc., and the penalties for not following the policy. This policy is now part of the employee handbook.

We do state in the policy that internet usage will be monitored. Thanks for the response Andy. I believe you have a policy out on your website don't you? Your name sounds familiar.

It is an internet jungle out there. I attended an internet compliance class recently and felt fairly confident about my answers to the instructor's "test" questions. After all, I've been a compliance officer at our community bank for 12 years. I think I violated every letter of the alphabet--some twice! A question from a customer as simple as "what are you paying on your CDs today" can get you into hot water.

As we move forward, we have developed a policy (of course), we are working on standard script answers to common customer questions, we have brought our affiliate banks onto an intranet to keep our transmitted data internal (it does not go out into the general internet world) and we have set restrictions on non-business type web sites. If you try to access a shopping site, for example, the system stops you and tells you that the site is restricted.

We are currently working on procedures to accept deposit account applications online. I feel my compliance head hurting.

I welcome any suggestions for navigating online account applications.

Has there been any research done regarding internet access at the branch level? I have encountered some banks (I work for a banking vendor in marketing) that have internet access at the corporate level only. It seems like the netork costs alone would save lots of $$$. Is the hesitation due to worries about lack of productivity or specific usage infringements?

An aside: a good firewall can allow users to only access certain sites, like a corporate intranet.

Giving every employee e-mail addresses is another risk area. We have done that. You must ensure that you have a policy that addresses acceptable use of that as well, i.e. Chain letters are NOT acceptable.

You must also have a policy that addresses how e-mails are to be responded to. For example, a customer complains to an employee that the debit card transactions are not theirs via e-mail. They send it midnight Saturday. it is deemed received when received by your server - not when the person that it was sent to actually opens and reads the e-mail - so your error resolution clock starts ticking sooner than usual. ALL employees need to open e-mails every day and need to know who to forward such customer complaints to.

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All opinions expressed are my own and not those of my employer.