Is your boss snooping on you?
That's the question today after it emerged that Bay employers are increasingly hiring private investigators to crack down on "cyberslackers" and scour their computers for signs of misconduct.
Demand for forensic computer analysis is on the increase, mostly among corporate companies checking for time-wasters, theft of
intellectual property, inappropriate use of work computers and harassment via the internet.
Former police officer turned licensed private investigator Mike Dingwall said that while most larger organisations could track internet usage and block certain sites they could only go back so far and retrieve so much.
"They can scrape the surface, we can get right to the bottom of the pond," said Mr Dingwall, director of Bay of Plenty company Private Investigations.
Computers taken from companies are sent by investigation firms such as Mr Dingwall's to laboratories with the technology to access information the user often believes has been wiped.
Many people are slack in what they send using electronic technology, Mr Dingwall said.
"Nearly everything you do on most electronic communication devices leaves a footprint and can be traced."
At Bay of Plenty Polytechnic, computer usage is recorded and IT staff have been required to present statistics from the computers of individual employees thought to be wasting too much time on the internet.
ICT Infrastructure team leader Brent Ingram said this happened once or twice a year and in some cases statistics had revealed staff wasting "a big majority of time" on the internet.
Mr Ingram said that before this year, TradeMe and pornography sites were the only ones blocked at the polytech but social networking sites Bebo and Facebook as well as YouTube and MySpace were now off limits on campus.
At Tauranga-based TrustPower, staff have access to three computers in the cafeteria available for use during breaks and before or after work.
Community relations manager Graeme Purches told the Bay of Plenty Times,/i> that staff using sites like TradeMe at their workstations had become a problem.
However, he said the cafeteria computers - installed more than a year ago - resolved the issue.
"I think if you reach the point where you have to have private investigators, an organisation should look at their culture," he said.
- with DAILY POST
