Use of company systems

Organizations may have a reason to choose to monitor employee messages or restrict their access to the Internet for the following reasons, whether the organization may have confidential information about their own systems that they want to protect or have user information and in that case it must guarantee compliance with the Data Protection Law and they can monitor employees Internet usage, as well as email sent and received, they can also restrict access to certain websites.

Another reason why an organization may decide to adopt a policy of this type is to prevent users from downloading malware inadvertently. By restricting employees, the Internet and its privileges will help ensure the integrity of their systems.

Some organizations may decide to restrict certain websites to prevent users from seeing unwanted information, they may also decide to monitor which messages are sent and received to ensure that they are related to the business.

Did you know?

In May of 2010 Google launched its Pacman logo, whereby users who wished to visit Google to perform some web search could play Pacman.  This was because Pacman was 30 years old and Google wanted to celebrate the landmark by having the game installed on their webpage.  The game was removed 48 hours later due to complaints of loss productivity.  Organisation bosses were frustrated that their employees were spending too much time playing on this game.  It was estimated that during the 48 hours that Pacman was live on Google systems it costed the world economy 120 million dollars.

 

Organisations may have other good reason to choose to monitor employees’ messages or restrict their Internet access for the following reasons.

• To protect their own information
  Organisations may have sensitive information on their own systems which they wish to protect.  For example, it may well be that an employee may be privacy to sensitive information such as payroll or personal details of other employees. Monitoring may be imposed to ensure the integrity of data but also to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act.

• To prevent users from inadvertently downloading malware
  Malware is malicious software which can be inadvertently downloaded onto a user’s PC.  This could be a virus, a worm or spyware.  Therefore by restricting employees internet and their privileges will help ensure the integrity of their systems. For example, any software downloads can be prevented by organisations, and this can only be done when approved by a network administrator.

• To prevent users from viewing undesirable data
  One of the biggest advantage of using the Internet is that it’s a wealth of information. However, some information may be inappropriate to view. Therefore, organisations can take the decision to restrict certain websites.

• To make certain that resources are being used for business purposes
  Organisations may decide to know that the resources they provide to their employees are used for the correct business purpose. A good example of this may be a company’s email system. They may decide to monitor what messages are sent and received to ensure they are business related.