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Two thirds of UK businesses have caught their employees viewing porn on a computer whilst at work, a new study has found.
67 per cent of companies have caught someone in the past 12 months looking at pornographic material in the workplace, compared to 31 per cent of firms in 2008.
The figures were released by employment law firm Peninsula Business Services, which questioned just shy of 4,000 businesses over the past few weeks.
Alan Price, Employment Law Director for Peninsula Business Services, said: "The office is not the place to be viewing porn, yet technology advances mean more employees are viewing porn whilst at work.
"Not only can this be deemed as offensive for co-workers, it can also damage the employer-employee relationship too. This could lead to employers having to dismiss the employee and a wrongful dismissal case may then involve the business at employment tribunal – so the situation needs to be handled carefully."
"We’ve noticed that those employees working anti-social hours are more likely to view porn at work, especially when unsupervised. There are also a number of companies who do not have in place IT systems to monitor the situation and the problem was only discovered when another employee informed their manager."
Peninsula advises staff not to look at porn whilst at work, but also recommends not to connect their own devices to their office’s WiFi connection as "companies can still check browsing history".
The company also states that "even accessing it on your own device can create complications especially if your co-workers can easily view your browsing habits".
Image source: Shutterstock
