Media
and telecoms watchdog Ofcom is inviting businesses to comment on its plan to
label internet content so that inappropriate material can be easily filtered.
The
plan, under consultation until August, could help HR departments prevent staff
from accessing such material by making it easier to identify and block.
Such
a system could have prevented incidents such as the recent resignation of
Michael Soden, chief executive of the Bank of Ireland, who was caught accessing
adult websites.
Last
week, it emerged that the bank is investigating how Soden’s PC was included in
what was supposed to be a limited audit of internet usage within its IT
department.
Bank
of Ireland’s IT outsourcing partner Hewlett-Packard, which carried out the
original audit, has launched a separate investigation.
The
investigations will centre on who initiated the original audit, who extended
it, and who leaked the results of the computer trawl to the media.
The
ongoing investigation is expected to be one of the immediate priorities of Brian
Goggin, head of the Bank of Ireland Asset Management, who was promoted to chief
executive following Soden’s departure.
