Managing Internet Use: Big Brother or Due Diligence?

Internet access has become an established business tool, taken for granted along with email, telephone and facsimile. Like these other media, giving staff access to the Internet has risks - will they spend all day downloading porn or swapping chat messages with their friends? Will they infect the network with viruses or publish company secrets? The key to managing these risks is a policy that defines acceptable Internet use and implementation of safeguards to ensure compliance with the policy. This paper describes the major risks of granting widespread Internet access along with suggestions to mitigate them. It also covers monitoring policies and the privacy issues that arise from monitoring Internet use.