Content filtering is a system that enables an organisation to monitor the activities of all personnel who have access to a PC.
Content filtering systems filter emails according to a criteria set by the management of the organisation and either block them or prevent them being sent. It can, for example, let a manager know that a particular employee is perhaps looking at pornography. Or it can keep a record of emails that can be inspected later if, for example, an employee is accused of harassing a colleague or sending abusive email or racist material.
Many companies already monitor emails and web activity and this is set to continue due to increased legislation.
Compliance – many US and UK companies have to comply with legislation ensuring that email records are retained for a specific period of time.
Libel laws – a company or its senior officers can be held responsible for the actions of their employees.
Illicit material – to prevent people downloading pornography and other offensive material.
Some 1 billion emails are sent every hour and 50% of those contain sensitive information.
Read the full statistics here.
As a result there has been a growth in the number of lawsuits based on, for example, sexual harassment and criminal activity. There have been instances where personnel have been using company PCs and the network in order to conduct illegal activities. Also, the increased incidents of terrorists using the internet in order to plan their activities further exacerbate the problem.
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Greater productivity – if 40% of employees’ activities are spent on non-work related activities, organisations can be losing many hours of valuable resource in an age when the cost of running a business is already extremely high.
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Degradation of network performance – if people are continually using the web to download images, film clips and music, this will impact the network simply because it will slow it down. The result could be that you need to buy more (unnecessary) bandwidth (*1) to cope with the demand.
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Need for legal compliance – some industries are regulated or constrained by stringent legal requirements, for example, financial services and pharmaceutical companies. As a result they must ensure that customer information is protected and not sent to a third party.
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Growth in criminal activities – there has been many instances where individuals have used company resources to break the law. For example committing fraud or dealing in drugs using the company internet access.
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To a large extent, organisations are responsible for the actions and behaviour of their personnel.
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Protection against loss of data – organisations need to protect vital information such as customer records and other proprietary information.
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Enforcement of an acceptable use policy. An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is a set of rules and regulations that all employees would be required to sign regarding their behaviour for using their PC and access to the internet. This, for example, could include only surfing the web for personal reasons (e.g. online banking) at lunchtime. It can also specifically outline that individuals should not send offensive material.
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Prevent inappropriate use – by knowing that they are being monitored, personnel are unlikely use the network for reasons other than business.
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Protection of reputation – preventing individuals sending scandalous emails can protect a companies brand and reputation.
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Protection against harassment, defamation, fraud and illicit activities.
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Big Brother – content filtering can be seen to be interference by senior management and the general perception amongst employees might be that the management don’t trust their personnel.
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It may block the wrong email or content and the sender may only find out after a period of time. If, for example, this is commercial material such as business proposals, this could be seen as a major inhibitor.
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Can be restricting – if certain content is being blocked or filtered all the time then it could prove frustrating. For example, if a student wishing to investigate breast cancer using the school’s internet access was blocked because it was deemed that the word ‘breast’ was inappropriate.
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Could be considered intrusive – as long as emails are marked personal then it is reasonable to allow people some personal activities.
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Installing a filtering program is not always legal – in some countries they are not allowed so you need to check carefully what applies to your country and industry.
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