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Adult content raises issues for bosses
Thursday, June 27 2002
by Andrew McLindon


Irish businesses need to do more to protect themselves from scandals and lawsuits
concerning the downloading and viewing of Web-based adult content by staff. 

Conall Lavery, managing director of IT security company Entropy, told
ElectricNews.Net that Irish companies have not been as good as they should have
been in tackling the distribution of pornographic material in the workplace by
e-mail or the Internet.



"There are no accurate Irish statistics, but research carried out in the rest
of the world suggests that 70 percent of all Internet porn traffic occurs during
the 9-to-5 workday, while one in 8 men have admitted to looking at or downloading
porn over the Internet during work hours, and that is just the number who
admitted to it. There is no reason to believe that the Irish situation is any
different," commented Lavery.



Lavery warned that companies who fail to take action on this issue risk damaging
their reputation and possibly ending up in court.



"The recent raids and seizure of computer equipment by the Gardai in relation
to investigations into child pornography should be a wake-up call to Irish
businesses. This is because several business premises were raided and one was
named in the national press," he remarked. "Can you imagine the damage the
leaking of that kind of information would have on the likes of banks, utilities
or producers of consumer goods?"



In order to reduce the ability of staff to view or send pornographic material
using the Web, Lavery recommends that companies introduce filtering tools. While
he admitted that such software would not be 100 percent successful in blocking
access to pornographic material or Web sites, he said it should be able to jam
around 80 percent of such content.



In addition, Lavery said that businesses must address the legal side of the
matter, which he described as a minefield. "On the one hand, you have to
respect employees' rights to privacy but, on the other, companies are leaving
themselves open to sexual harassment suits," he commented.



"Companies have to get the balance right because people are spending more and
more time in work and have to be given some latitude in using the Internet.
However, there have been an increasing number of instances where businesses have
been sued by employees after they received or were exposed to pornographic
material that originated from the Web," added Lavery.



Lavery said that in his opinion, if companies introduced a written policy about
what is acceptable to view and send via the Web and implemented filtering tools
in a proper manner, then they should be in a good position to defend themselves
against potential sexual harassment charges.



Entropy is to hold a free seminar in association with solicitors Matheson Ormsby
Prentice on the issue of protecting organisations from pornography in the
workplace. The seminar takes places on 4 July in Dublin.



Lavery said that reaction to the seminar so far had been "incredible". "It
certainly seems to have hit a nerve. Irish businesses seem to be very concerned
about this issue," he remarked.



Entropy can be found at www.entropy.ie. For
details of the seminar on pornography in the workplace, see href="http://www.enn.ie/events.html">ENN Events.