Porn use in the workplace is an escalating problem. It wrecks productivity, contributes to a hostile work environment, and can even expose your business to serious legal liability—in some cases criminal liability—issues.
This problem is actually more prevalent than it appears, and some employers have even been found legally liable for an employee utilizing work resources to view child pornography.
While the line between HR responsibilities and IT responsibilities is a little blurred here, it can certainly be agreed that the safety of employees should be paramount for all departments.
The obvious solution to this, rather than having employees whose sole responsibility is to monitor other employees, is use appropriate software. Computer forensics enables careful monitoring and reporting of employee activity across the company’s networks. It should be noted that an employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy on the company premises pertaining to network activity—a company is 100% within its right to monitor all internet traffic on the premises. Below are two types of monitoring software packages.
First is a User Activity Monitoring software package. These are installed at the server level and track all user activity across your company’s networks. However, the issue is that these packages are usually based on a monthly subscription, and can cost thousands of dollars a month. The cost of the software must be weighed against the cost of potential litigation or HR actions.
Another method for tracking use is a DNS monitoring package. Many of these tools not only track employee activity, but many of them can actively block access to questionable websites. They can be set up to generate daily or weekly reports of questionable activity by employees, allowing you to monitor and document employee behavior.
NSC Information Technology Group is well versed in the intricacies of dealing with porn in the workplace. Allow NSC to assist you with setting up policies, tools, and safeguards to keep your employees safe, your business HR compliant, and minimize any legal liability.