Posted By Andrew Cartridge I have had discussions with a colleague, who works for a multinational, & what he told me seemed ridiculous, however, as it is well outside my scope of experience, so I am asking for opinions or guidance from fellow forum members who may have experience in this field. His company has recently gone “hi tech” in that all of their email & web access etc is monitored by an external provider. The problem is that he is the H&S Co-ordinator, & some of his mails both incoming & outgoing are being suppressed by the external provider & returned as unsuitable content, due to either destination addresses or text content. When he reported this to his line manager, & explained that he must have freedom to send & receive emails etc, due to his position, he was told to contact the provider, who told him that it was his company that had set the policy not them, & they were only prepared to allow him access once they were in possession of a letter of authority from the company. His concern is that whilst the letter is being drafted & sent, something vital could be suppressed by the provider, that could have serious repercussions on the company from a health & safety perspective. My advice was use the phone & fax whilst this is being sorted out, & to register his concerns formally to his line manager, has anybody else experienced red tape gone mad? Bestest Andy

Posted By Glyn Atkinson Is the H&S person dealing with any contacts or information that would come under the Data Protection Act ie ongoing evidence in compensation cases, solicitor letter replies via e mail, or insurance brokers information etc etc.?? Similar situation during a refurbishment to our offices, I was asked to move to an open plan office with all of my files, folders etc. I refused on the grounds that I often have to deal with sensitive compensation cases in private - information from witnesses, appointments with lawyers, brokers, insurer reps etc. I could not do all of that without the facility of privacy against being overheard in the open plan space. Has the controlling firm signed any sort of strict confidentiality clauses in their contracts - are they based remotely or have service staff on the site in question? Have you any evidence that the work they are currently doing is preventing any confidential work from proceeding or that information has leaked into a shop floor area, for instance? That would be a real fear from my perspective - that my confidentialty promise given to employees who honestly report or give witness statements freely could be breached if I have to scan documents to send by fax to court proceedings via acting lawyers at short notice. (my fax is part of my pc mail service here.) Can this person quantify in writing what effect the IT overview is having on his work rate and efficiency ? - these are the things that have to be put in evidence to get the letter written for withdrawal of any overseeing operation, in my view.

Posted By Lynne Ratcliffe Yes, been there done that etc. Our IT department decided to restrict access to the internet to avoid 'unsuitable' and 'unecessary' and 'un work-related' topics! Fair enough. However, Health and Safety need to access a lot of sites with HEALTH in the title! i was told to email when i needed a site that i could not access - after two days they lifted my restrictions on health and health related sites as i was driving them bonkers!

Posted By Andrew Cartridge Lynne Good point, maybe if enough people request something it will happen. Andy

Posted By Philby' Andrew, we have an automated mailsweep that is 'fed' words to spot and stop, with the obligotry warning, this is then sent to a real person to 'open' and assess.... strangely, since the system was upgraded, or 'nipped' apparantly, words such as, (sorry mods' but this is ness) 'f**k' and 'c**t' do not get stopped...these are used on incident reports of abuse and exact statements are necessary for legal follow-up. However, chav, nude and hardcore does...bearing in mind we as an authority have an art gallery (nude), highways and parks department, (hardcore) and travellers department (real chavs), things sometimes get a bit sticky but a chat to the IT bods usually gets a 'ignore from this dept/person/service area.... Philby'

Posted By Jason Holmes One of my associates had a query regarding the use of mobile towers. I sent him a copy of the free HSE leaflet on the subject. This was returned because the email software used by my company picked up on the word "erection" !!! Found it quite funny at the time One of our engineers had an email returned because it contained the word "dyke"!!!! Big Brother is alive and well and living in I.T. !!

Posted By Chrisopher Gilbert I too have experienced the frustration of web resources being blocked as IT security has got tighter. Most recently I found that the HSE web site, IEMA web site and Loughborough Uni library(where I'm doing the Pg.Dip H&S management course) websites blocked. In contrast a google search for "pyrex" (looking for technical data) returned an acessible site selling glass phalluses.

Posted By Philby' Moderators/All, with respect of the thread I appreciate that that the terms I used, and asterixed, are quite obvious as to their meaning, however this was just to illustrate Andrews and other posters points further, and is a true reflection of what I and the rest of the team have to deal with on a weekly basis with regards customer facing, abuse follow up and legal responses to control/action....in fact I have dealt with one this morning to which the IP was skirting around the issue until they overcame their embarrasment....largely by me explaining the procedure, gentle coaxing and using real anecdotal examples.... furthermore, and this is not intended as a swipe or justification, a trawl through the threads reveals other examples of the same terms equally obvious despite the asterix which are still active.... is the system you utilise similar to that of ours, ie automated removal for manual checking? If so it further proves the point that sometimes the language has to be used and the access, to often not very pleasant terminology/information etc, utilised regardless of personal moral standard.... If I have offended anyone, this was not intentional and you have my unreserved apology. Regards Philby'

Posted By Gilly Margrave I am subject to the same nanny system as Philby and am often concerned that verbatim witness statements have been intercepted for manual checking. One problem is obviously the delay this can entail (especially where there are procedural time limits involved); the other is the possibility that documents may make reference to the line manager of the person doing the checking. I am not sure what the point of the checking is - if I want to eff and blind I just use my personal e-mail rather than the work one. Gilly