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Damian Green: Not only my workstation – mystery pr0n all over Parliamentary PCs

Lee D Silver badge

Okay, you wish to have an example?

I work in a school. I determine the IT policy in co-operation with the school. I do this using sources such as other school's policies, previous school's policies, current legislation, employer's desires, employee's legal rights and surrounding legal frameworks. Hence, I'm not just "making it up to be obstructive" but writing a real-world policy that isn't going to get me sacked by my own words for checking my GMail briefly in my lunch hour.

Are staff allowed to carry around home laptops and plug them into the network or chat home on Skype? No. Not even during their lunch hour. If they want to do that, they take a phone and go and do that on the phone. Anything else is an unauthorised device. In school that has the connotation of people plugging in unsafe devices, or accidentally capturing images of children in a playground (let's be honest... not the most serious of things you can do in and of itself, and anything "worse" should raise child protection concerns almost immediately in such an environment, e.g. taking a phone into the changing rooms, but still an issue you need to counter) but in Parliament I imagine there are lots and lots of other things you don't want visible on a webcam, leaking out of the organisation, plugged into the wireless, etc. etc..

But... Oh... wait... the phone policy in school is such that they can't use them during working hours within sight of the children or parents. So they'll have to leave work and GO OUTSIDE to have that call anyway. On their lunch hour. And they can't just answer the phone for random personal calls or talk to their mates while wandering the grounds even as a member of non-teaching staff (e.g. the IT guy...). Gosh.. it's almost like a policy that every workplace in existence has in some form or another that DOESN'T allow you to wander off and not-work for hours and hours and hours and hours on end, watching porn, while being paid by your employers to be doing a job.

My next questions would be "Why are they doing that?", "Why would they need a laptop to do that?" and "Why would that not come under "reasonable" non-work-related use of facilities?" Seriously, you have to video-call your kids every lunch hour and can't just use a phone or go a few hours during the working day? Sure, if they're ill at home and you have a babysitter. I think that gets classed under my exceptions as stated. Why does that need Skype, or a laptop, especially a personal one?

Does that mean they can have permission to just install Skype (which includes remote-desktop functionality and may require admin rights)? No.

Does that mean they can spend hours on it? No. (They should just go home, if it's affecting their work that much... hey, I'm more than happy to allow that for all my staff and have said to my boss "Oh, I sent X home, they were upset and in no fit state to work" and the response was "Okay". End of. Hell, I didn't even have to sign a form or anything, no wages were docked, etc.)

Does that mean that it's a sensible thing to do while they should be working unless it's NECESSARY? No.

Does that mean you can abuse such a privilege if it's been granted once in extenuating circumstances? No.

Does that mean I'm calling for a sacking offence for something taking their hands briefly from the keyboard home keys while they should be working? No.

(and I'm very reasonable in terms of family-work-life balance here, so I have no problems with such things in principle, I have a problem with you thinking that the same exceptions mean you can also surf porn for hours on end or that you HAVE to video-conference on an unauthorised device in a secure location including transmitting audio and video around the globe via third-party companies rather than just walk outside and make a phone call on what is quite clearly your own time).

To be honest, I'd much rather we had politicians who worked for a living like everyone else, didn't try to use the excuse that they have to personally entertain themselves at work just to "concentrate" (hey, I wonder if teachers should get that same exception... or the guy who makes your lunchtime sandwich... or that guy who works in the lingerie department.... does that just seem weird and creepy now, rather than something a human should be overcoming... 'scuse pun?).

A politician who can't concentrate on an important vote because he's insufficiently sexually stimulated should excuse themselves from the vote entirely because they're an adult, and if they're unable to cope with that they should do another job and let someone with an ounce of self-control do theirs.

Browsing porn on a work computer is a sackable offence in basically every job imaginable (maybe not being website developer for certain sites... but I bet even there you could get the sack for doing it too much unnecessarily!) precisely because it's unnecessary, unrelated, unauthorised, and you're being paid to be doing something else. No different to a postman who decides to spend an hour in the pub because he was a bit thirsty. Fine if that's YOUR hour, fine if you're not doing anything illegal (e.g. driving while drunk), fine if there's an extenuating circumstance (your van hit the van of the guy in the pub), etc.

Otherwise, no, you'd be sacked in almost ANY job known to man for doing so. Unless you're a politician, apparently.

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