One in six firms plan to monitor workers on Facebook

Companies are increasingly using Facebook and other social tools to monitor employees for potential security breaches, according to research from Gartner.

The research found that 60% of companies planned a formal approach to monitoring social media – from Facebook to YouTube – for security breaches by 2015.

While most companies monitor social platforms for branding purposing, only one in ten currently screen for security issues, the research found.

“Security monitoring and surveillance must follow enterprise information assets and work processes into whichever technical environments are used by employees to execute work,” said Andrew Walls, research vice president of Gartner.

The problem lies in the ability of surveillance tools and methods to produce large volumes of irrelevant information

“Given that employees with legitimate access to enterprise information assets are involved in most security violations, security monitoring must focus on employee actions and behaviour wherever the employees pursue business-related interactions on digital systems.”

According to Gartner, companies should be watching employee accounts to discover breaches such as posting videos of inappropriate activities within corporate facilities, or letting slip trade secrets.

Legal risk

The research stressed, however, that monitoring workers’ social media accounts raised serious concerns, and could leave companies exposed to other risks – being sued, for example – if employees felt they had been unfairly treated because of personal posts regarding sexuality or religion.

“The conflicts involved were highlighted through recent examples of a small number of organisations requesting Facebook login information from job candidates,” Walls said,

“The problem lies in the ability of surveillance tools and methods to produce large volumes of irrelevant information. This personal information can be exposed accidentally or become the target of voyeuristic behaviour by security staff.”