By Andy McCue, 11 May 2005 15:55
NEWS Three-quarters of companies would not report employees caught downloading child pornography in the workplace to the police, according to new research.
The survey of 200 UK IT managers by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) also found 38 per cent would not even discipline or sack an employee for downloading illegal pornography.
Peter Robbins, CEO of the IWF, told silicon.com that one reason for the high figure is that many IT professionals are still concerned that storing any illegal images found on the corporate network as evidence could also leave them open to prosecution.
"It is a very shocking figure when you consider the serious nature of the content we are talking about. But it has been a grey area for those monitoring networks who are worried they might be guilty by viewing and copying it for evidence," he said.
But changes to the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which came into force last year, now provide a conditional defence protecting IT managers who in their day-to-day management of corporate networks may need to download and then store potentially indecent images of children as evidence in order for the content to be assessed by police or the IWF.
Robbins admitted it was "impossible to know" the extent of child pornography downloaded and viewed in the workplace but said the increasing range of devices such as PDAs and laptops that employees can use to access the internet has had an impact.
"Because of the portability of devices companies provide to employees sometimes people forget they are using work equipment when they visit these illegal sites," he said.
The warning is part of the IWF's 'Wipe it Out' campaign to raise awareness amongst IT, HR and legal and regulatory managers about how to tackle the issue of illegal pornography in the workplace. It will be distributing literature and best practice guidelines to over 3,000 IT managers in the UK.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I caught an employee downloading child pornography in March 2003. He wasn't the fat seedy 50 year old stereotype, but a 24 year old with a girlfriend.
After a brief flurry of police action over two weeks, we then heard nothing. A "councillor" turned up (a year later) and gave us such advice as "oh dear, I don't know what I'd do".
The case came to court last week and has been adjourned for sentencing until June.
This has been two years of stress, and worry for the safety of our children (he knew where we all lived as it's a small company).
With non computer-literate jury's a paedophile will make any excuse and if you don't have a good knowledge of IT these might sound plausible. "A hacker did it" and "It was a virus in Kazaa".
In all, we did the right thing but I can see why most companies would not, with lost time and the police having to PROVE that some other employee didn't "plant" evidence.
The legal system is too plodding and not IT literate itself.
He could be at a computer right now downloading more and nothing is being done until he finally goes to prison.
2. Full name
I'd just like to congratulate the previous poster on having the courage to see the process through. If there were more people taking your attitude, our society wouldn't be in the mess it appears to be.
I'm disgusted that most people would do nothing. We have extremely strict rules about this, rigorously enforced. If I found someone with child porn, I'd be on to the police in a flash.
3. anonymous
This is a good idea to put child porn on somebody computer in office. It just takes couple clicks, and you can proudly report to police. This may happen to previous posters.
Again this is not a rocket science to frame somebody you want get rid.
You do not need to kill the person
4. Anthony Hunt
Planting such evidence is near impossible.
The previous poster obviously doesn't understand much about computers.
Fortunately police IT staff are more informed.
They prosecute persons on the basis of a trail of evidence, not an unmarked floppy disk found in a drawer.
The "it was planted by virus", "someone else did it" excuses as defence are easily disproved.
5. anonymous
The previous poster is speaking hogwash. It is very easy to plant such evidence as long as you have administrative rights to the computer, in fact you could even remotely execute IE to a page of your liking so there is a log of that too. The subject carries such emotion it is far too easy for people to grab a torch and joining the pedo lynch mob, forgetting the rules must be there to protect the accused not just the victims.
Either way child porn is wrong