Acceptable Use Policy

The purpose of this policy is to outline the acceptable use of our IT systems, computer equipment and computer applications, to protect the business and to protect the data of our customers, employees and other stakeholders. These rules are in place to provide clarity as inappropriate use exposes the Company to risks including virus attacks, compromise of the network systems and services and legal issues.

Maintaining the robust security of our IT systems and protection of our data is a team effort involving the participation and support of all of us.

Aggregates ‘R’ Us has an established culture of honesty, openness, trust and integrity and therefore it is not the intention of this policy to undermine any of those guiding principles and values of the business. As a Company we are committed to protecting the business, its customers and its employees from illegal or damaging actions by individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly.

It is the responsibility of every employee and computer user to know these guidelines and to conduct their activities accordingly. Failing to follow these procedures could result in disciplinary action.

Scope

This policy applies to employees, contractors, consultants, temporaries, and other partners at or working for the Company, including all staff affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned or leased by Aggregates ‘R’ Us, and includes activities that may include ‘own equipment’ to access our systems.

Policy

General Use and Ownership

  1. While Aggregates ‘R’ Us wishes to provide a reasonable level of privacy, users should be aware that whilst they are using company equipment, the Company monitor that use in order to protect the Company’s network. Management cannot therefore guarantee the confidentiality of information stored on any network device belonging to the Company.
  2. Employees are responsible for exercising good judgement regarding the reasonableness of personal use and are expected to comply with all policies and procedures which are in place to protect the system and the data it contains. Employee should refer to our HR Policies for further information and if there is any uncertainty, employees should consult their line manager.
  3. The Company reserves the right to audit networks and systems on a periodic basis to ensure compliance with this policy.

Security and Proprietary Information

  1. Examples of confidential information include but are not limited to: company private, corporate strategies, competitor sensitive data, trade secrets, specifications, customer lists, and research data. Employees should take all necessary steps to prevent unauthorised access to this information.
  2. Users should keep passwords secure and must not share accounts. Authorised users are responsible for the security of their passwords and accounts. Administrator level passwords should be changed monthly and any other user level passwords should be changed every 3 months
  3. All PCs, laptops and workstations should be secured with a password-protected screensaver and users should logging-of when they leave their workstation unattended.
  4. All equipment used by the employee that are connected to the Aggregates ‘R’ Us network whether owned by the employee or Aggregates ‘R’ Us shall be continually executing approved virus-scanning software with a current virus database as per Quadris instruction.
  5. Employees must use extreme caution when opening e-mail attachments received from unknown senders, which could contain viruses, e-mail bombs, or Trojan horse code.

Unacceptable Use

The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Employees may be exempted from these restrictions during the course of their legitimate job responsibilities. Please note that Aggregates ‘R’ Us administrators have a high level of permission which may grant them access to areas that they do not require to access in the normal course of their role. Aggregates ‘R’ Us administrators should not access any information to which they are privileged unless requested to do so by a senior member of staff or in order to execute the normal course of their role.

Under no circumstances is an employee of Aggregates ‘R’ Us authorised to engage in any activity that is illegal while utilising Aggregates ‘R’ Us owned resources.

The lists below are by no means exhaustive, but attempt to provide a framework for activities which fall into the category of unacceptable use.

System and Network Activities

The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions:

  1. Violation of the rights of any person or company protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property, or similar in laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of “pirated” or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by Aggregates ‘R’ Us
  2. Unauthorised copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books or other copyrighted sources, copyrighted music, and the installation of any copyrighted software for which Aggregates ‘R’ Us or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
  3. Exporting software, technical information, encryption software or technology, in violation of international or regional export control laws, is illegal. The appropriate management should be consulted prior to export of any material that is in question.
  4. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs, etc.).
  5. Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home.
  6. Using a Aggregates ‘R’ Us computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user’s local jurisdiction.
  7. Make fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any Aggregates ‘R’ Us account.
  8. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.
  9. Effecting security breaches or disruptions of network communication. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the employee is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the employee is not expressly authorized to access, unless these duties are within the scope of regular duties. For purposes of this section, “disruption” includes, but is not limited to, network sniffing, pinged floods, packet spoofing, denial of service, and forged routing information for malicious purposes.
  10. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to InfoSec is made.
  11. Executing any form of network monitoring which will intercept data not intended for the employee’s host, unless this activity is a part of the employee’s normal job\duty.
  12. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.
  13. Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee’s host (for example, denial of service attack).
  14. Using any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, with the intent to interfere with, or disable, a user’s terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet
  15. Providing Information about, or lists of, Aggregates ‘R’ Us employees to parties outside Aggregates ‘R’ Us.