It kills me that the norm is to have IT take respo...

2010-04-25T21:29:56.956-07:00

It kills me that the norm is to have IT take responsibility for blocking and monitoring visits to porn sites in modern corporate culture. The problem isn't just that this type of responsibility rests with human resources or departmental managers, not the techies. It's that, by putting it in the realm of technology management, they're saying that IT are the corporate technology use police, not the technology supporters and enablers.

Distrust of IT is generally high, simply because people are uncomfortable with and distrustful of technology. But taking on this responsibility compounds that distrust tenfold.

As the people who control the data, we (IT Staff) have dual responsibilities. One is to not look at the things that we wouldn't be able to see if we weren't admins. And the other is to not decide, for the company, what they should and shouldn't do with computers. We can advise, and we can contribute to the decision making processes regarding computer use, as we have expertise as to what is feasible and optimal. But, if we are the ones controlling what people can and can't do on the systems, we lose all authority to recommend how it's used.

I consider filters to be a necessary evil in battling spyware and viruses, and, if they're in place, I think it's a service to the org to also block porn. But log monitoring and reporting on porn use should never be an IT function.

Kayza's Blog

It kills me that the norm is to have IT take respo...