US firms use own staff to snoop on co-workers
(Office)spy versus spy
Posted in Management, 23rd May 2008 13:42 GMT
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The UK may have more CCTV cameras than anywhere else in the world but US workers are kept under even closer tabs over internet use at work, according to a new survey.
Two in five (41 per cent) of large US firms pay staff to either read or analyse the contents of outbound emails. One in four (26 per cent) of the 300 US firms surveyed by email security outfit Proofpoint said they had sacked someone for violating email policies over the last 12 months.
Email was by no means the only source of data leakage or risk to corporate reputation. Many US corporations disciplined their staff over misuse of web 2.0 communications media such as blogs, message boards and media sharing sites.
Eleven per cent of US firms quizzed said they had disciplined workers for improper use of either blogs or message boards. A similar 13 per cent of companies had cause to read the riot act to workers over misuse of social networking sites. Improper use of media sharing sites led to disciplinary action at 14 per cent of the firms quizzed.
One in four (27 per cent) of the firms polled had investigated the exposure of confidential, sensitive or private information from lost or stolen mobile devices in the past 12 months. The exposure of sensitive financial information (such as unannounced financial results) on blogs or message board postings resulted in disciplinary actions at 14 per cent of publicly traded firms surveyed by Proofpoint.
Proofpoint's survey, Outbound Email and Data Loss Prevention in Today’s Enterprise, can be downloaded here (registration required). ®
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COMMENTS
re: no bad thing
So let them go home after the 8 hour shifts.
They can then have time to USE their home internet connection.
@But if I do all my work....
Sad but true... some of us actually do all our duties etc... then have time to do other things. Lucky for me the information commissioner or whatever the local one is ruled that employees receive expectation of privacy. Only if there is suspected abuse(A) or suspicion of a crime(B) can they do anything and even then
A) it is suggested the employee be present
but if there is a folder marked PERSONAL in someones mailbox it should not be touched
B) only a police investigator can do so
Infact there was recently a high profile(government) case involving something like this :)
The people responsible already got fined...
But if I do all my work....
...and there are no performance or quality issues, why can't I keep up my contacts and other private stuff?
Some of us can do our work well AND play.
Management wonks are like Paris: All fluff and noise.
I can understand but........
I can understand a comanies point of view, you should be working while uing our quipment in our office while were paying you. But, unless our a habitual offender of constantly surfing and not working, or if your emailing the "secret plans" to the competition, I have a problem with anyone being fired.
price of loyalty
I'm gonna go out on a limb and posit that if companies actually treated their staff like valued employees instead of meat- bags to wring dry of every iota of soul, energy, &c., there would not be such a pervasive sense of "gotta get mine back". When the company for which I used to work was small and locally- owned, we were all "on the same team"; when we got bought by a publicly- traded conglomerate across the country, it became "us" versus "them" since we had to fight for every. single. budget request in the face of HQ trying its damndest to appease stockholders whilst not really knowing jack about how we did what we did. Jolly Roger for corporate raping, pillaging, and whip- cracking over the galley slaves.
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