| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 05/06/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 54 |
| Copyright: Other |
Don’t expose yourself to the pornography pitfalls
Pornography is the Internet’s biggest commodity, but take a peak at what’s available on the World Wide Web during your working hours and you could find yourself very quickly out of a job. Linsey McNeill reports
Thomson’s decision to sack several staff and start disciplinary proceedings against others for viewing and passing on pornographic images from the Internet has highlighted one of the major problems for the travel industry since the introduction of the World Wide Web to the workplace.Preventing employees from using the Internet for inappropriate purposes is becoming an increasingly difficult task for companies as more and more members of staff are given access to the Web. Yet, unless there are clear policies in place to prevent misuse of the Internet, employees could be forgiven for over-stepping the mark.
One obvious way of preventing staff from accessing undesirable sites is to restrict use of the Internet to purely business purposes. Carlson Wagonlit has already taken this approach. But a Thomson spokeswoman said its staff were allowed to use the Internet for appropriate purposes. Unfortunately, what is and is not appropriate is not always clear.
Obviously, accessing pornography on the Internet during working hours would seem grotesque to some, but as Richard Kenyon, an employment law specialist with City lawyers Field Fisher Waterhouse said: “If you wouldn’t sack an employee for reading the Sun, why would you sack him for visiting www.page3.com?”
In Thomson’s case, one of the biggest problems was that staff were apparently sending pornography they had received via e-mail from their offices to people in other companies. And as Thomson managing director Shaun Powell said, such actions could damage a company’s reputation.
Sending information to colleagues could also constitute sexual harassment for which the employer is ultimately responsible. Employees should also bear in mind that downloading and distributing pornography might amount to publishing obscene material, a criminal offence for which they risk imprisonment.
Thomson has updated its guidelines on the use of the Internet and e-mail since the alleged abuse, including a section clarifying what it considers to be obscene material. It now states that pictures showing unclothed or partially clothed people, pictures showing or suggesting acts of a sexual nature and written material referring to the above, may be treated as gross misconduct under the disciplinary procedure.
Kenyon said that unless companies gave such specific guidelines about what staff can and cannot do on the Internet, they risked falling foul of the law themselves.
He said detailed guidelines were particularly important for companies who did not want to go as far as banning all personal use of the Net.
“Without clear rules the employee may be genuinely unaware that what he is doing is wrong,” said Kenyon. “This is particularly true of pornography which has no precise definition.
“With an Internet policy, an employer can set the rules for its organisation. An employer may wish to ban access to all sexual material as there can be no possible legitimate business use for accessing or transmitting such material in work time.”
Kenyon said companies tended to assume that downloading sexual material warranted instant dismissal and that there was a tendency to over-react where the Internet was involved. If a company were to over-react, employees could claim unfair dismissal in employment tribunals where compensation awards of up to 50,000 may be made.
An example of how to set up an Internet policy can be found at www.citu.gov.uk/publications/ecommunication/annex-a.htm. This includes a section on how to prevent employees accessing pornography on the Web.
Caught in the act:companies could get their fingers burnt if they don’t define the rules on employees accessing pornography on the Internet
Once bitten: Thomson now has clear Web guidelines after it sacked staff for passing on pornographic images from the Internet