A public servant in Australia with 25 years of service was fired after looking at pornography at home and after office hours. Apparently, software setup by the IT department from the Commonwealth Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism triggered an alert after the unnamed senior public servant used the search term "knockers." Called Spector360, the software was configured to take a snapshot of his desktop every 30 seconds, which became the proof that led to his termination.

Government lawyers argued in federal court that because the laptop belonged to the department, its policies--which clearly prohibited pornography--applied at home, too. Justice Nye Perram, who dismissed the former public servant's lawsuit and ordered him to pay his former employer's legal costs, noted that the man should have been aware that the computer was monitored, as he was also on an IT subcommittee.

I took a look at the website for Spector360, which on its front page touts its easy-to-read reports to help employers determine matters like "Who is arriving to work late and leaving early? Who takes long lunch breaks?" and "Which employees spend the most time surfing websites?"

Beyond the titillating nature of the story is the more pertinent issue of whether corporate IT policies should be applied on a company laptop--even when taken home. And while the logging was conducted openly, the actions of the former public servant seem to suggest that he did not know full extent of it. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think it is fair or appropriate for an employer to employ such invasive monitoring software?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at The Sydney Morning Herald
- check out this article at The Register

Related Articles:
Australia customs wants to vet your porn collection 
Some IT pros uneasy about employee monitoring
Tracking employees on social networks