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Almost 40 percent of Irish workers accessing the Internet in work have said their use of it is monitored by their employers, but nearly ten percent are unsure.
According to Amarach Consulting's quarterly Consumer TrendWatch Survey, an estimated 336,000 people use the Internet at work in Ireland with 38 percent of them responding that Internet use was curtailed or monitored in some form in their workplace.
Monitoring of time spent on-line or Web sites visited was the most common policy used (72 percent) and nearly half (49 percent) of respondents said that e-mail was not allowed for personal use. A similar number said that they could use e-mail, but could not surf the Web.
However, nine percent of respondents said they did not know if their use of the Internet or e-mail was being monitored or restricted in any way and over one in five were not sure if the Web sites they visited were checked.
According to Bettina MacCarvill, senior consultant at Amarach, this means that many employers are not being up-front about their monitoring activities and do not have formal policies and procedures in place. "This cloak and dagger approach probably serves employers quite well," commented MacCarvill. "Employees are less likely to waste time on-line if they suspect their activity is being monitored."
Amarach's latest research also showed that as of Q1 2002 there are now over a million Irish Internet users. This is equivalent to around 36 percent of Irish adults being on-line, which is up from 30 percent in the first quarter of 2001.
But, MacCarvill told ElectricNews.Net that growth during most of 2001 had been low at two percent and had only picked up in the last quarter, which saw a significant increase over the Christmas period in first-time Internet users. According to the survey, 23 percent of adults access the Internet at home, 12 percent at work and seven percent at school or college.
Amarach is predicting that Internet use in this country will grow to around 43 percent by 2003, but even with that growth Ireland will still lag behind other European countries in terms of its Internet penetration rate. This, said MacCarvill, is because large sections of the population have no interest in using the Internet.
"We asked people who said they did not have Internet access whether they intended to use the Internet in the next 12 months and 80 percent said they had no intention of doing so. This was particularly the case among older people who haven't really being exposed to the Internet and do not think it has any relevance to their lives," said MacCarvill.
She added that the increased availability of e-mail and limited Internet surfing over digital TV may encourage the older generation to use the Internet because they are more comfortable using TVs as opposed to PCs.
MacCarvill also commented that the much-anticipated introduction of high-speed Internet access via DSL is unlikely in the short-term to increase Internet usage in Ireland. "It will initially appeal to those who understand and know about the technology and want faster Internet connections. Over time though it could have an impact in attracting people on-line because of the added services available to them over DSL."
Amarach's report was based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,004 adults conducted during January and February 2002.
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