Email Policy & Guidelines

1.      Policy Statement

Electronic mail (“email”) service is operated by the Music Step Academy (trading name) under HIUS Group UK Limited. Staff are allowed to share business information within the company via email.

2.     Policy Objectives
  • To provide guidelines to all staff in using the email system;
  • To reinforce staff to comply with these Policies and General Guidelines;
  • To implement strict privacy and security policies of email service;
  • To minimize disruptions to email services.
3.     Policies
  • Conditions of use.
  • With the company owner’s consent, staff are permitted to use email system to send/receive email messages to/from external sites.
  • Advertising and sponsorship are not permitted except those related advertisements and sponsorship in the course of the company’s businesses.
  • Confidential data must not be transmitted via email.
  • Precautions must be taken by staff to prevent their own email accounts from unauthorized access.
  • Email service must not be deployed for personal use or any activities against the company interests (please refer to Section 4.1 ‘Code of Practice’ for more details).
    • Violation of this policy may lead to disciplinary action or termination of employment or legal action.
    • The company reserves the right to review any email and its attachments when and as needs arise.
    • The User Guidelines and Code of Practice for email services in the company should be observed and carried out by all email users.
4.     General Guidelines
4.1 Code of Practice

    Dos:

    • Assist and co-operate in the protection of the system. This includes, but is not limited to, :
      • Logout from the network when leaving the office.
      • Use attachment with password control for sensitive data.
      • Obtain confirmation receipt for important emails.
      • Use default screensaver in Windows or lock the computer with password control when away from the desk.
      • Attach appropriate signature and/or disclaimer to outgoing emails when applicable. Example of disclaimer is as follow:

    “This e-mail is confidential. It may also be legally privileged. If you are not the addressee you may not copy, forward, disclose or use any part of it. If you have received this message in error, please delete it and all copies from your system and notify the sender immediately by return e-mail. Internet communications cannot be guaranteed to be timely, secure, error or virus-free. The sender does not accept liability for any errors or omissions.”

    • Housekeeping of Mailbox
      • Read mail messages every day.
      • Delete mail once read or set up “Personal folder” for retaining wanted mails or folders such as ‘To-do folder’ or ‘Pending folder’ under “Inbox” to store mails.
      • Delete unwanted mails from “Inbox” and other folders regularly.
      • Detach mail attachments into your hard disk.
    • Utilize Mailbox auto-reply function for special scenarios when applicable. This includes, but not limited to:
      • Notify the sender that the recipient may not able to respond to him/her in a timely matter.
      • Setup auto-reply and auto-forward email rules for resigned staff mailbox if applicable. This notifies the sender that the intended recipient is already not available and the sender should send the message to another related party if applicable.

    Don’ts:

    • Use unauthorized email accounts to send emails.
    • Disclose email address list of staff to public.
    • Send or forward any emails that may contain computer viruses.
    • Generate or store any potentially offensive information. This includes, but is not limited to, jokes, material derogatory to any ethnic, religion, gender-based or others on the grounds of race, unlawful or sexually explicit material.
    • Send harassing or threatening messages or potentially defamatory emails that criticise other individuals or organisations.
    • Access or download inappropriate materials, such as pornography from the Internet via email.
    • Send or disseminate mails that are unrelated to business, such as screen savers.
    • Infringe copyright when downloading materials or forwarding them to others.
    • Auto-forward emails to other mailbox unless it is authorized to do so.
      4.2 Security and confidentiality
        • Server and client virus scanning programs have been installed and virus signature will be updated periodically.
        • Email spamming is prohibited.
        • Contact technical support staff when receiving suspicious emails.
        • The backup system is only designed for disaster backup, not for recovery of individual email.
        • Keep hard copies of important emails as it is impossible to retrieve permanently deleted emails.
        4.3  Awareness of Email policy

        The email policy and guidelines are published to email users via email regularly, to increase the general awareness of Viruses and to prevent virus hoaxes.

        4.4   Service restrictions

        Advance notice for service suspension will be provided as early as possible if it becomes unavoidable.

        4.5   Account closure

        The email accounts of staff who have resigned will be deleted.

         (The above information were updated on 23-May-2024)

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