Slashdot Mirror
When Ethics and IT Collide
jcatcw writes "IT workers have access to confidential data, and they can see what other employees are doing on their computers or the networks. This can put a good worker in a bad predicament. Bryan, the IT director for the U.S. division of German company, discovered an employee using a company computer to view pornography of Asian women and of children. He reported it but the company ignored it. Subsequently the employee was promoted and moved to China to run a manufacturing plant. That was six years ago but Bryan still regrets not going to the FBI. Other IT workers admit using their admin passwords to snoop through company systems. In a Ponemon Institute poll of more than 16,000 U.S. IT practitioners, 62% said they had accessed another person's computer without permission, 50% read confidential or sensitive information without a legitimate reason, and 42% said they had knowingly violated their company's privacy, security or IT policies. But in the absence of a professional code of ethics, companies struggle to keep corporate policies up to date."
Your assertion is certainly the most obvious reason people are assigned passwords on a company's computer network. But there's no reason why that has to be an exclusive reason.
I maintain that giving employees their own passwords amounts to giving them a certain level of privacy, AS WELL AS protecting company information (and aiding in having accountability for a user's actions).
Ask the typical employee why he/she is in the habit of locking their Windows workstation before going to lunch. I'll bet, if they're honest with you, they'll say something like "I don't want other people walking by and reading my email!", rather than "I'm afraid a co-worker will do something against company policy on my PC while I'm gone, and get ME in trouble for it!"