Alternatives To Monitoring Employee Internet Use

Surveillance of employee Internet use is becoming a troubling topic to many these days. People will turn to the Internet with very personal issues which they would likely never discuss over the phone or by email because of the sensitivity to the issue - you can get to the Web anonymously. This is of course unless you employer is watching. Websites that employees have visited may indicate that they have a very serious illness or be in an abusive relationship.

It is possible for employers to enforce their Internet Usage Polices and still allow for their employees to maintain some level of privacy. If, for example, a company wants to keep its staff from visiting sex sites -- but will permit their surfing sports, business and new sites for a maximum of 15 minutes during breaks -- that company can use software to limit workers' activities to just those sites and time frame.

There are methods that exist today that will allow for employers to check to see if their employees are transferring emails back and forth from other outside of their work. Catching just the headers of emails, the To and From fields will identify this information.