Oakland Firm Implements Web-Access Controls and Monitoring.

This firm discovered that some inappropriate use of the Internet was occurring.  As part of its effort to resolve the attendant personnel problems this created, a system was put in place to both monitor and control web usage.

BOC Installs and Configures Content Filters and Web Monitoring

BOC devised a two point program to address the firm's concerns.  First a Content filter was installed on the firm's firewall.  This filter blocked access to certain categories of websites such as those containing hate content and pornography.  Since website creation is extremely dynamic, the filter has to stay continuously updated to be effective.  The system BOC installed updates automatically every day and is based on a yearly subscription.

It was also important to begin monitoring user's activities on the Internet for other types of abuse and non-work related activities.  A monitoring application was therefore installed with access from the Office Administrator's computer to regularly check usage.  The monitoring application can produce numerous reports and graphs to check utilization by such criteria as bandwidth-used and websites visited.  Immediately after installing the system, one employee was found to be using as much bandwidth as all the other staff combined by streaming audio and video throughout the day.  The user was politely asked to desist.  

Reasonable Limits Provide Peace Of Mind, Not Overly Restrictive

These strategies did not take away from staff's ability to use the Internet for appropriate and reasonable uses.  By simply limiting access to inappropriate content, and being able to quickly identify gross abuse, the firm accomplished its aims without staff feeling unduly restricted.