This time, I want to talk about occupational safety and digital security -- things every business absolutely needs to stay on top of.
Definitions of Industrial Accidents and Major Disasters#
Industrial Accident: When a worker dies, gets injured, or falls ill while performing their duties.
Major Disaster: When 1 or more deaths occur, 2 or more people require treatment for 3+ months, or 10 or more workers are simultaneously injured (including occupational disease cases).
Causes of Accidents#
Industrial accidents happen due to unsafe actions by workers and unsafe conditions in equipment/environments.
- Unsafe Actions: When workers neglect their duty of care or engage in risky behavior
- Unsafe Conditions: When equipment or the work environment isn't properly maintained and becomes hazardous
The causes of unsafe actions include overconfidence, rushing, misperception, cutting corners, ignorance, incompetence, and indifference.
Accidents particularly tend to occur at small workplaces with fewer than 50 employees, among new workers with less than 1 year of experience, and within 2 hours of starting work on Mondays and Fridays.
Finger injuries are the most frequent, so wearing hand protection and staying alert is crucial.
4 Principles of Disaster Prevention:
- Principle of Preventability: Accidents can be prevented in advance.
- Principle of Random Loss: Losses should be managed to occur within predictable ranges.
- Principle of Causal Chain: Causes and effects must be clearly analyzed and connected.
- Principle of Countermeasure Selection: Prevention measures should be chosen based on rational criteria.
Practical Prevention Measures:
- Work in pairs to distribute risk.
- Strictly follow safety procedures before and after maintenance, cleaning, inspection, and repair work.
- Strengthen training for new workers and reinforce on-site inspections.
Heinrich's Accident Causation Theory#
Heinrich explained that accidents are a chain reaction flowing from social environment and genetic factors, to personal defects, to unsafe conditions/actions, to the accident itself, and finally to the disaster.
He also proposed the "1:29:300 Rule" -- for every 1 major accident, there are 29 minor accidents and 300 near-miss incidents.
Even small warning signs can lead to major accidents if ignored, so never overlook any red flags.
| Heinrich's 5 Stages of Disaster Prevention | |
|---|---|
| Stage 1 | Safety Management Organization |
| Stage 2 | Fact Finding |
| Stage 3 | Analysis |
| Stage 4 | Selection of Remedy |
| Stage 5 | Application of Remedy |
The Importance of Digital Security#
Beyond physical safety, information assets are a core competitive advantage for modern businesses.
The main causes of data breaches are external hacking and internal leaks.
10 Rules of Information Security:
- Classify important documents by confidentiality levels (confidential, internal use only, etc.).
- Confidential documents must go through executive-level approval procedures.
- Apply encryption and access controls when moving or copying documents.
- Conduct regular security training and inspections.
- Maintain strict access control and network firewalls.
- Follow basic security practices like password management and two-factor authentication.
- Establish and review backup and recovery plans.
- Activate immediate response processes when security incidents occur.
- Thoroughly manage security for external partners and subcontractors.
- Continuously update with the latest security technologies and policies.
Definition of Personal Information and Stage-by-Stage Obligations#
Personal information refers to any information that can identify a living individual.
Here are the obligations at each processing stage:
- Collection & Use (Article 15): Obtain consent from the data subject, apply the principle of minimal collection.
- Provision (Articles 17 & 18): Prohibit use/provision beyond the stated purpose, follow procedures for third-party provision.
- Management (Articles 29-34): Obligation for safety measures, create processing policies, notification/reporting requirements in case of leaks.
- Destruction (Article 21): Destroy data without delay when the retention period ends.
Violations can result in fines up to 50 million KRW.
CCTV and Video Information Processing#
CCTV installation and operation must also follow the 'Guidelines for Operating and Managing Video Information Processing Equipment (Article 25)'.
The installation location, purpose, and retention period must be clearly disclosed and managed.
We've covered occupational safety and digital security -- two things you really can't skip in business operations.
If you manage even the small risks without letting them slip through, you can build a safe work environment and a trustworthy information management system.
I hope you'll apply these principles to your own workplace and organization!
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
— Walter Lippmann
