Inappropriate Use Of Employing The Internet At The Workplace

Did you know that 58% of employers have fired workers for Internet and email misuse? And 48% justify employee video monitoring as an effort to “counter theft and violence?” According to the “2007 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey” of which 304 U.S. companies participated in, computer-monitoring results have led to the highest cause of employee termination. These companies used several tactics to eavesdrop on employees while claiming to be managing productivity or for security purposes. Some argue that surveillance is absolutely necessary to help protect and grow a business; others argue that employee and customer rights come first. However, companies that use such tactics often violate the privacy of individuals, exploit their private information and even punish those that do not conform to their standards.

When that technology is used to view, collect or disseminate inappropriate content, again employers have cause for concern. Use of workplace computers to access and distribute pornography, for example, frequently results in discipline and workplace harassment complaints. In some cases it can even result in serious criminal investigations.

All (insert department name) personnel use computers, computer candidates, computer programs, Internet resources and network communications usage shall be in a responsible, professional, ethical, and lawful manner. The conduct of employees during on and off-duty is a replication of the department. This policy is proposed to guide and regulate the conduct of employees when related to representation and employment through the abundance of social network settings. This policy is also designed to promote efficiency, discipline and good public relations by setting guidelines governing the actions of every employee of (insert agency name) both on and off duty.

System Administration, Networking, and Security Institute or SANS.org (2001) “View Employee Internet Use Report (PDF)” retrieved from http://www.sans.org/security-resources/policies/internet.php

According to a survey report done by the Kelly services with 170,000 people from 30 different countries, 55% of all the participants believe that the use of social media for both the personal and professional posts can cause problems in the workplace (Bennett, 2012). According to a study done by the proof point, many US companies that have hired the employees more than 1000 in number face a real problem with their employees to use social media (Ostrow 2009). Almost 17% of these companies had faced serious disrepute due to the offensive comments on the social media websites (Ostrow 2009). Almost 13% of the US companies have investigated the use of personal text messages that have been found to infringe the company’s law (Ostrow 2009).

This section of the employee handbook is provided as a guideline for employees to understand the company policy and procedures regarding privacy in the workplace. While this section cannot address every possible scenario that may occur, the general policy will serve as a basis of understanding the key workplace issues and employee privacy. This section addresses privacy issues related to personal background information, off-work activities, and the corporate policy on the use of electronic monitoring. These privacy policies are designed to both provide a clear guideline for employees on the difference between job related and personal privacy. The policies are designed to create a standard set of

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

This will be set up by the organisations themselves, this will set out the policies in which the staff must abide by in order to use the internet, most of the time, the policies will state that they must not use the company’s internet for personal use, and that they must use it wisely. Many measures such as passwords, authentication, firewalls and

Internet use has become more popular in the last two decades, while in the 80' and 90's the common communication channels were phone and fax, electronic email has become the norm in the new century; computers and internet use have become ordinary commodities at the workplace. Common knowledge and internet etiquette (netiquette) teach us essential rules of proper behavior for internet use. It is imperative that we understand that in the business world, netiquette must go beyond simple rules of common sense and courtesy, and most companies rely on established policies and internal controls to assure that employees understand the importance of following ethical and legal guidelines when using the internet. These policies are also important

By enacting an Internet Policy, we will maximize the prevention of breaches to the security resulting in the leaking of classified material here at America West. The lack thereof could prove to be detrimental. Prevent unauthorized people outside the company potential access to Company passwords and other confidential information. Internet use also creates the possibility of contamination to our system via viruses or spyware.

Also to surf on to gain knowledge about new technology or business processes. Some of the employees may misuse this by using the internet to have their social networking websites- wasting their working time and hence the organizations time. This is why certain policies are made to avoid the abuse of company resources. Some companies avoid this by giving limited access to their employees like 100MB of data per day. If at all the person exceeds the limit he/she has to be ready to answer for what purpose he has done so. Some companies block the sites and given limited network access to their employees. Downloading the content or any resource of the organization in the PC or Laptop is prohibited as they are copyrighted with the organization. Any act of defaming the organization or its employees or its customers should not be posted on the internet. Using of any pirated software or downloading the pirated content by using office internet is also prohibited as it is against the laws made by the government and this leads to face legal issues for both organization and the

There is time wasted , when a person could be more productive at the workplace, they spend time checking websites, that perhaps may not beneficial to the job description. So I am totally against internet use at the workplace.

A policy on employee and computer monitoring will also help reduce the potential for legal liability that might arise out of the actions of the employee for electronic communications that can be found to be in violations of the laws related to workplace discrimination, harassment, and obscenity as well as those involving intellectual and trade secrets property rights. (Stephen D. Lichtenstein, p.2) Federal and state laws impose upon the employers the obligation to provide policy that will protect employees against sexual harassment or workplace discrimination. It is not sufficient that the company proves that it acted on the complaint of an employee against another employee. The conduct of an investigation will also not

The Internet is a technology that has negative impacts on our daily lives. It has changed aspects of our life for the last 50 years, and it has demonstrated the considerable influence on people’s lives. Almost 3.2 billion people in the world use the internet. The Internet has gained acceptance across the globe, and it has also become a reason behind the critical changes in the modern society. Some of the changes are social isolation, health disorder, lack of privacy and internet addiction.

The growing issues with Internet usage in the workplace has become a major concern for employers. Employers are discovering that employees are spending hours of wasted time surfing the Internet and sending inappropriate emails. Employers classify this type of behavior as, “Internet abuse,” and breaking company’s policies. While employees see this type of behavior harmless, employers see this as potential risks to their organization. Previous researched study show employees spend hours surfing the Internet and sending non-work related emails to co-workers, family, and friends. With millions of employees having access to their employer’s Internet, companies are seeing an increase in Internet usage causing potential legal