Forums Forums Wirral Information Law And Your Rights Monitoring and internet policies at Work

Monitoring and internet policies at work

With CCTV and Web / email Monitoring i came across this page, whilst looking up for a email Monitoring Program.

Some of the stuff is handy to know.
I found that there is a general full disclosure policy by employers needs to be adopted.

And yes you can loose that promotion due to Face Book.

Have a look at all the sections its handy to know.

http://www.worksmart.org.uk/rights/viewsubsection.php?sun=57

They are hammering down on Facebook and other websites where I work atm; the general rule is here, if you are working, don't use it. If you are in a public area (regardless of whether you are working or not), don't use it.

If you are on a break or working but idle (if that makes any sense), then you can use it, so long as its not in a public area.

I can see us filtering it again soon, as since we removed the rule from the network, staff have been taking liberties. We do not monitor staff (though we could potentially) as the exec is pretty lenient, but I can see his point, it does not look good if people are on Facebook when patients and other NHS staff are there. He also has issues with other sites being used, understandably, such as online shopping and holiday sites etc... As it stands, the rule will be enforced if people are caught in person, not through monitoring, though im still unclear as to what the punishment would be, given we havent caught anyone yet (and presumably its probably not in the staff contracts).

CCTV was installed all over the place at the end of last year, as a result of theft; the staff saw their arses, because the exec was having a joke with them when it first got installed (twas a new toy lol), when they were going the shops in work time, he was phoning down asking where they had been; now they assume he is just constantly watching them (which he isnt, he has far more important things to be doing), so it keeps them on their toes (when he is around anyway).

The only person who looks at the CCTV actually, is me, when theft has been reported, I'm responsible for reviewing the time period, and what a bloody boring job it is!

Btw, cheers for the link Mark, ill be passing it on the management and admin departments, as I don't think they have an igloo as to where they stand in this day and age!

We have an internet policy in my office but it generally isn't used. It's a pretty laidback atmosphere and if people aren't working they are on the intertubes. I think pretty much everyone has a link to FB on their quicklink bar in FF.

Email I don't "monitor" but I filter out server-side. If I think it's inappropriate it just doesn't hit the employees mailbox in the first place.

CCTV we don't use, most of the offices I have seen (while doing computer repairs) use fake ones more often than not. They just aren't a deterrant these days, a simple hoodie and you're invisible to them. That and the fact that the ones that are actually worth using with motion detectors and IR/NV that only switch on when they sense movement cost so much that most companies take one glance and swiftly forget about them.

I guess my job is quite easy with the email side of things; NHS.net (the NHS email service) take care of it all centrally! Security wise, because we are on the NHS N3 secure connection, used for the transfer of confidential data between hospitals and GP's, access to the WROCS service etc, we have little to do with that either!!