[Gllug] User Internet monitoring

[Stephen Harker]

On Thursday 12 Jun 2003 4:12 pm, Alistair Mann wrote:
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> Thus spaketh Stephen Harker on Thursday 12 June 2003 3:40 pm:
> > Hi All,
> > After a particularly nasty run-in with an employee of the company I work
> > for, I started running a report ( http://web.onda.com.br/orso/sarg.html )
> > once a day which gives a breakdown of each PC's access and where and when
> > sites were accessed and a bunch of stats. It has revealed a couple of
> > interesting trends about certain peoples internet usage during company
> > time.
> >
> > Does anyone have any experience in the legalities of this sort of
> > monitoring. It states clearly in the network policy of the company (that
> > all employees sign) that email will be logged and monitored and also that
> > PC's found with inappropriate material will be deemed gross misconduct
> > etc...
> >
> > Comments?
>
> It seems a tad lazy of you to put 'etc' when what your policy says is
> directly relevant to the legality of what you're doing. Are we to somehow
> guess the policy?

I am sorry about that. I was trying to save some typing :-)
The policy states...

"Any pornographic content is strictly banned!! PCs will be periodically 
checked and any user found to have this material on their PC will have all 
Internet permissions removed and will face other repercussions. Any activity 
of this nature will be deemed gross misconduct and will be dealt with 
accordingly."

Actually, the problem isn't porn it's just massive time-wasting and bandwidth 
hogging (hi-bandwidth music streaming and constant downloading of stuff). We 
have 20 people all using a 512k ADSL which is fine so long as everyone is 
considerate. All in all it's a grey area so I think I need to re-write the 
policy to be less ambiguous.

> If your policy states only that you'll monitor email and occasionally check
> user machines, then your monitoring is illegal. If you have specifically
> said you'll monitor Internet usage, then it is legal. In general terms!

Right. Well, the policy does NOT explicitly state that www traffic will be 
monitored so I guess I should stop monitoring it. I have removed the reports.

> You may like to take a less confrontational route. For instance, a linux
> box running driftnet would display on a common area monitor most of the
> images moving over the wires. That has a big effect on Internet usage.

I'm not doing this to be confrontational. I just need facts at my disposal for 
when I am accused of doing things that I'm not and when people deny doing 
things that they are.

I have to go and speak to my manager about it.

Thanks for your replies.

Steve

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