Legal reasons to make intranets, extranets and software accessible
We mainly assume that Intranet, Extranet and software accessibility are private affairs and there would be no legal bindings, but this is not the case. Many of us do not know the fact that there are many legal reasons to make intranets, extranets and software accessible. Well, I am going to highlight some of the reason in this blog that would surely enrich your knowledge. The first and foremost reason is that website or other service that is provided to the public comes under legal jurisdiction. Now you must be thinking that Intranet or extranet is meant for private use, while software is a product not service then how they come under legal binding. Yes, this is true but as Intranet and extranet are related to employees they fall under legal bindings, while software when digitally downloaded becomes a service and it no more remains a product so it also comes under legal bindings. Let’s deal with each of them in detail.
Intranet software provides a private network to the organization and it provides a platform for the company to share information with its employees. Now this makes it comes under the rights of employees. The law says that the employer can’t discriminate employees on the basis of disability, race or nationality in accessing information, which is available for general employees. So, the company is bind to maintain the uniformity in sharing information with employees falling under Intranet system. The other reason is as Intranet network with the help of Intranet software provide basic information that helps the employees to perform their normal duties, it is legally binding to provide equal access to Intranet to every employees. Intranet provides information regarding rules and regulations of the company, its HR policies, appraisal policies etc. that should be essentially known by the employees. All this comes under right to information of the employees that makes uniform Intranet accessibility legally binding for the companies. The same goes with the extranet as well.
If any software is provided as a digital download to the public it becomes a service and the service should be accessible to every public without discrimination. In this way it comes under legal jurisdiction. For the companies it becomes their legal duty that if their staff needs to use software to perform their duties then that software should be accessible. All the above-mentioned reasons must have helped you to gain an insight about the legal bindings pertaining to Intranet, Extranet and software accessibility. I will advise you to always ‘buy accessible’ whenever possible to accommodate more diverse workforce.