Don’t knock a good IT policy

There has recently been reported an Australian case which illustrates how careful employees have to be if they have been given and have agreed to comply with a workplace IT and internet usage policy. This case could easily have happened in New Zealand with the same outcome.

The case (Griffiths v Rose [2011] FCA 30) was heard by the Federal Court of Australia and involved a senior public servant working for the Department of Energy, Resources and Tourism. Mr Griffiths accessed pornography at his home using his own internet connection but using a laptop supplied by the Department. No-one else saw the material, and it was not illegal. Mr Griffiths also deleted the browser history to prevent accidental discovery.

However, unbeknownst to Mr Griffiths, the Department had installed a desktop logging system on his laptop which recorded particular keywords and snapshots of his computer's desktop every 30 seconds. It recorded Mr Griffiths' viewing of pornography after he typed a flagged keyword, 'knockers', into a search engine.
Mr Griffith’s problem was that he had read and signed the Department’s IT policy which expressly prohibited the viewing of pornography on its IT facilities, and which also stated expressly that the use of its IT facilities would be monitored. Despite his 25 years’ service, Mr Griffiths was dismissed.

As Mr Griffiths had been expressly warned in the policy that his use of the equipment would be monitored and that the viewing of pornography on the equipment was prohibited, the court held that the covert monitoring was not unfair.

Furthermore, given that the IT policy stated that disobedience of the prohibition on viewing pornography could result in termination of employment, and given that Mr Griffiths had come up with an elaborate explanation as to why he had viewed the material which the court found was not credible, the court found that his dismissal was not unfair. The judge did say that the termination “may well be harsh – there will be those who think it inhumane” but that was not the requisite standard and so the dismissal was not unreasonable.

The lesson for employers is that you should make crystal clear in your IT policies that you will monitor the use by employees and contractors of your systems and equipment, that viewing of pornography is prohibited, and that termination may follow if that prohibition is breached. Employers should also get employees and contractors to sign a declaration to say they have read and understood the policy.