Employee Internet use can be both beneficial and detrimental

The FSA found that large amounts of unencrypted customer details had been sent via post or courier to third parties.

Confidential information about customers was also left on open shelves or in unlocked cabinets and could have been lost or stolen.

In addition, staff were not given sufficient training on how to identify and manage risks like identity theft.

Use of social networks can impact business in terms of employee productivity.

A recent study suggested that up to 233 million hours may be lost every month as a result of employees spending time on social networks, costing firms over £130m a day.

It can also jeopardise confidential information.

In a recent case involving Hays Specialist Recruitment, the employee stored his business contact information on LinkedIn, the on-line social networking site.

Hays alleged that the employee had uploaded business contacts from the company’s confidential database to his LinkedIn account.

The employee argued he had been encouraged to join LinkedIn and that, once a business contact had accepted the invitation to join his network, the information ceased to be confidential as it could be seen by all his contacts.

How can an employer protect itself from all these various risks?

Banning the use of the technology is unlikely to be the answer.

When the law firm Allen & Overy tried to ban its employees from using Facebook, there was an internal backlash because the lawyers said that they needed Facebook to enable them to network with friends and businesses contacts which would develop business for the firm.

Also, there is no “one size fits all solution”.

Every business is different.

In one case, an investment banker was summarily dismissed by the bank’s HR for viewing adult websites while at work after a report from the IT department.