Now that you have some knowledge and skills on what to look for in privacy policy, do you ever think about your bank’s privacy policy? Apply what you’re learning from our discussion this week on Google’s privacy policy and answer the following (bolded) questions below:
At the end of the day, banks have to make money to survive. They make their money by charging interest on loans, or by selling CDs (Certificate of Deposit). In both cases, they intend to make money off of your money! Before a bank enters into a legal contract with you as their customer, they want to know all they can about you, your financial history, your current situation, and your financial future so they can make a wise choice. To make these decisions, banks walk very fine lines of ethics and privacy.
For this activity, your specific assignment is to research 5 different bank’s privacy policies and provide written guidelines for what you think a Privacy Policy should include.
Based on your research, please provide the following information in your report.
The names of the institutions you looked at, you do not need to include the actual policies.
Outline (or table) 5-7 items that an effective Privacy Policy should include.
Describe the internal activities a bank manager should engage in to make sure employees are aware of required compliance with the Policy – be specific.
Make sure that you use an appropriate format (e.g. business memo). Include an introduction and closing statement.
Basically, you are looking for “themes” from the policies you looked at but it’s up to you to decide what should be included in a Privacy Policy. For example, should the protection of personal information be included (is this info. shared to non-affiliates for marketing purposes?). How about banks storing your computer’s “IP Address” when you visit their website (should this be protected and disclosed to the user that it is being recorded?). These are just some things I would want to be included in a privacy policy as a consumer.
Refer to the PCC Business style guide for proper formatting of your submission.
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