Monitoring employees' online access

By Alin Popescu | Săptămâna Financiară | 7th of March 2008

A study conducted by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute shows that almost 25% of the American employers have fired people for breaking the Internet use regulations. In fact, the Americans are pretty much monitoring everything, as the companies are worried about their employees’ lack of productivity, breaches of confidentiality and use of offensive language in relation to clients or business partners. However, 83% of the companies have announced their employees that their online activity is being watched, while 71% of the companies announced their employees that their emails are monitored. Due to this monitoring, in 2007, 64% of the American managers fired employees because they were breaking company regulations and 62% have fired people for use of inappropriate language in emails. The most common methods used to monitor employee online access are: monitoring Internet surfing history, logging information entered by employees by keystrokes, and monitoring time spent on the Internet for personal use.

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