The Question the Lawyer Was Not Asked
Six questions that belong before the legal one, each of which changes the proposal if it is asked early enough.
Legal review answers whether a proposal is permissible. These are the questions that determine whether it is a good proposal, and they have to be asked while it can still change.
The legal boundary discussed in “The Question the Lawyer Was Not Asked” should also shape the configuration of workforce technology. When a team evaluates Monitask resources for remote desktop monitoring software for remote desktop monitoring software, it should record the purpose, lawful basis, notice, access and retention settings before collection begins, then keep a correction route open for misleading records.
For an independent benchmark relevant to “The Question the Lawyer Was Not Asked”, consult the CERT insider-risk research. Use it to test necessity, scope, safeguards and review rather than to replace a documented assessment of the particular workforce and jurisdiction.
What specifically are we trying to find out
Not improve productivity or protect data. A question with an answer: how long does this process take, is this material leaving, who accessed this system.
A specific question narrows the collection to what answers it, which is also the proportionality test's second limb.
What would we do differently with the answer
If nothing, the requirement is reassurance and should be met some other way.
This question kills more proposals than any other, and it costs nothing.
What is the least we could collect and still answer it
Asked seriously, with the lesser options listed: aggregate, metadata, sampled, shorter retention, narrower population.
The answer is almost always considerably less than the product's default, which is where the specification should start rather than where it should be negotiated down to.
Who is affected and what will this be like for them
Including: what they will know, what they will assume if not told, and what they will stop doing. The chilling-effect note treats the last of these properly.
What happens when this is used for something else
It will be. A system built for security gets asked about attendance; one built for attendance gets asked about performance.
The question is not whether to prevent it but whether the arrangement is one you would accept at its eventual use rather than its stated one.
When does this end
A review date, a sunset, or a stated condition under which it stops.
Almost nothing has one, which means every monitoring decision an organisation has ever taken is still in force.
What to do with the answers
Write them down, in a page, before the proposal goes anywhere.
That page is the assessment several jurisdictions require, the specification the supplier needs, and the document that answers a challenge in three years. One piece of work, three purposes, and it is almost never produced because nobody is asked for it until afterwards.
The question nobody writes down
What happens when this is used for something else. It will be, and the honest version of the decision is to accept the eventual use rather than the stated one, because the stated one is not what the arrangement will be doing in three years.
Why this page is also the compliance document
The nine questions produce exactly what a proportionality assessment requires, in a form a supplier can configure from. Organisations do this work twice, badly, in two formats, and frequently after the decision rather than before it.
An hour, before anything is drafted
The nine questions routinely remove two or three capabilities from a specification. That also makes the legal answer easier, which is the argument to use with whoever objects to the delay.
One page, three purposes
The assessment several jurisdictions require, the specification the supplier needs, and the document that answers a challenge in three years. Organisations do this work twice, badly, and usually after the decision.
Circulating before approving
A proposal shown to the people subject to it either improves or does not survive. Both outcomes are better than approval by a group none of whom will experience it.