Case Study: Growth of Social Media Policy Usage

In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 45 percent of the population uses Facebook. The UAE eGovernment has released the Guidelines for Social Media Usage in UAE Government Entities,¹ a progressive move toward implementing a social media security policy. The guidelines provide steps to be taken by the government and addresses issues such as access to social media sites from within government offices, account management, employee conduct, content management, citizen code of conduct, security, privacy, and some other legal issues. The guidelines state: “The main driver behind granting access to employees is to ultimately enhance their work performance and contribute to improving their outputs and deliverables.” It recognizes that the lines between personal and professional usage of social media sites are often blurred, making the issue of granting access to one rather than the other difficult. It, therefore, recommends: “Access to social media sites shouldn’t be banned. Employees should be held accountable for any improper use of any social media site.”

¹Ibrahim Elbadawi, “Three Reasons Why the UAE eGovernment Social Media Guidelines of Are Vital,” Government in the Lab (Date: March 11 2011), http://govinthelab.com/three-reasons-why-the-uae-egovernment-social-media-guidelines-of-are-vital/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ Government20InAction+%28Government+2.0+in+Action%29.

The policy covers a wide array of policy topics, including:

Policy controls These outline appropriate behavior and content guidelines when using social media tools.

Acquisition controls Examples of these are found in the “Access to Social Media Websites” section of the UAE’s policy. The controls allow for greater security and privacy settings and greater control of information (such as setting strict authentication measures or managing cookies) when subscribing to commercial social media sites.

Training controls These provide awareness and courses for employees on policy, conduct, and best practices when it comes to using social media tools.

This policy is a great start for the UAE. What the government can do to improve this process is to address policy guidelines for monitoring and reporting. They should also add an incident response policy for when things go wrong. The current policy does not address these key concepts in any detail. As their policy states, however, social media management is an ongoing process, and the UAE will most likely modify the policy as the landscape changes.