According to a survey by The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and image detection company PixAlert, 71 per cent of medium and large firms have found "illegal or inappropriate" images on a staff member's PC in the last 24 months.
Despite the regular occurrence of pornography, smutty joke pictures and the like on UK PCs, managers are taking an ostrich-like approach, with 54 per cent of bosses unaware that they could get themselves into legal strife if illegal or offensive material is found on business computer equipment.
HR departments don't fare any better, with 66 per cent of companies saying their computer acceptable usage policy is out of date.
Imogen Haslam, CIPD professional advisor, said that with one person's acceptable joke doubling as another's offensive material, companies need to communicate exactly where the line is drawn over what is and isn't acceptable at work.
"Where confusion arises... is where the policy isn't clear and the managers aren't clear," she said. Companies don't necessarily have to be prudish but an environment where some near the knuckle images are tolerated can end up as one where the situation snowballs and employees end up bringing illegal material to work, she added.
With devising the terms of a computer acceptable usage policy often falling between the two stools of HR and IT, companies can see the development of the policy failing to keep pace with the development of new technology.
"Set the period for [policy] review, talk to IT and fully document any cases [where the policy has been infringed]", whether they're formal or informal, Haslam said.
