The Irish company has announced its new five-step Risk Assessment service that helps organisations to identify threats posed by illegal or inappropriate images stored on corporate PCs that can expose directors, managers and employees to criminal and civil claims.

“Inappropriate or illegal images are not just being downloaded from the Internet but can now get onto the corporate network via devices such as memory sticks, DVDs/CDs, mobile phones and digital cameras,” said John Nolan, The Irish company, CEO. “It is a growing problem that if not addressed, can potentially threaten a company's reputation and liability.

The Irish company's five-day, five-step Risk Assessment service gives companies peace of mind by proactively dealing with the threat and mitigating future risk.”

The Irish company's Risk Assessment service comprises the following five-step methodology:

Review of corporate legal and HR policies to gauge vulnerabilities for employee abuse;

Assessment of the quantity and severity of illicit images on a network to determine corporate exposure to threats of illegal and inappropriate images;

Alignment of policies and procedures to meet company strategic goals while minimizing risk to the corporation;

Communication to all staff to ensure employees understand new policies and procedures and repercussions if disregarded;

Enforcement of an enterprise wide process using monitoring and auditing software to provide ongoing detection, reporting and case management.

Pornographic Material - Not Just an Internet Problem

Andy Churley from The Irish company, a company that specialises in preventing illegal and pornographic images, comments on proposed new Government legislation

Download UK Government Consultation Document

Home Office Minister Paul Goggins yesterday announced that the Government intends to ban the possession of extreme pornographic material. Under the Government's proposals, it would be an offence to possess images depicting scenes of serious sexual violence and other obscene material.

But while the main focus is on cracking down on new material being downloaded from Internet sites, illicit images are already common on desktops and networks and can be introduced via the new generation of digital devices such as USB keys, digital cameras, mobile phones, discs, MP3 Players, portable hard disks and unsecured wireless networks.

Standard web filtering methods to prevent images being accessed from the Internet can easily be by-passed through the use of secure Internet proxies, embedded content and file encryption.

Another common assumption is that most of this activity goes on in homes yet, according to the Society of Human Resources Management, 70% of internet porn traffic occurs during working hours. There is clear evidence that many people are spending time at work looking at illegal or pornographic images and that the activity can become addictive. In one publicised case last year, at the UK Department of Works and Pensions, 2 million pornographic images were found on the network and even more worryingly 18,000 illegal images. With the potential new classification of illegal material this figure may well have been even greater.

The Irish company's Risk Assessment service comprises the following five-step methodology:

Under existing UK legislation, companies and their senior managers can already be criminally and civilly liable for illegal and inappropriate images found in the workplace. Yet in a recent survey conducted by The Irish company and The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, over 50% or managers were unaware of this while this proposed new Government legislation will help further raise awareness and help deter this unacceptable behaviour, the only way to reduce corporate exposure and stop illicit images in the workplace is by monitoring what people are actually looking at on the desktops and auditing corporate IT assets in order to find and remove legacy material.

There is no doubt that the proposed new legislation is a positive step and could be a useful deterrent but this needs to be combined with greater awareness and use of preventative technologies, particularly in the workplace. In particular, it is important to recognise that the important issue is in the nature of the content … not where it was accessed. This is not an Internet problem, pornographic and illegal images can originate from many sources.