Friday, May 27, 2011

A church IT informal acceptable use policy (comments?)

I'm thinking about using this as a one-page into to a church IT acceptable use policy. Comments?

One-Page Summary


Acceptable Use
Any IT resource or materials furnished to you are intended for
church business. Yes, you can use church resources for personal use, just don’t
overdo it. Don’t do anything illegal or immoral with church property, please.
Content Filtering
The church will try to make it as safe as possible to use
church IT resources. Yes, we’ll try to keep you from accidentally getting spam,
being exposed to pornography, and prevent viruses while you are using church
computers on the church network. No, we can’t protect you from everything
that’s out there. Let us know when the protection doesn’t work as expected.
We’ll try to keep the innocent innocent.
Please don’t try to get around the protection we put in
place. There literally there to help you, and we won’t like it if you try to
break it. If you need help with some personal issues, please ask.
Limitations on Usage                     
Don’t use church IT resources for anything illegal or
immoral. Be nice. If you do screw up, hey, we’re Christians and we’ll lovingly
help you overcome any offense and cope with the consequences.
Resource Limitations
Please don’t abuse the church IT resources. We should be
good stewards. Please don’t let your activities interfere with other people
trying to get things done. If you should (perhaps unknowingly) cause IT
resources to underperform, you might find something stops working for you
suddenly. Try to play nice.
Expectation of Ownership and Privacy
As a church, we may have confidential or personal
information on the campus. You must not violate the trust put in us. If you
have any doubt at all about whether something can be shared or sent to someone
else, ask. When in doubt, don’t share information that isn’t solely yours.
Don’t expect your files and emails using church IT resources
to be private. If you store something on a church computer or use a church IT resource
like email or printing, chances are someone else will see it. Anything you create
at the church belongs to the church, so if you need an exception to that, talk to
someone who can decide otherwise, or don’t do it at church.
Violations
Again, please don’t do anything illegal or immoral. If you do,
as a church we’re here to help each other and to forgive. There may be consequences,
up to losing your job, however, and some things may be legally required of us whether
we like it or not. But remember that we’re here to help others and each other, so
ask for help if you need it.