[LINK] NSW Govt porn audit

[Roger Clarke]

At 16:10 +1000 2/9/10, Kim Holburn wrote:
>The NSW Government porn audit has already claimed a minister, now Fred
>Nile apparently has accessed porn 200,000 times.  Phew!
>http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1342957/Fred-Nile-denies-viewing-porn

Not that I particuarly wish to defend Fred Nile, but there's just a 
teensy weensy bit more we need to know before we jump to conclusions.

I did the following 5 years back, after being asked to give expert 
evidence on what an employer needs to have done before they impose a 
serious sanction on an employee: 
http://www.rogerclarke.com/II/OffIm0511.html

[I haven't re-read it, and it was done in one sitting, and 
technology's moved on since then.  So it may have some holes in it - 
and I'd be pleased to hear about them, on or off list, because this 
is an area of law that remains unsettled and needs to be fixed.]

The conclusion reached was that "a heavy onus rests on the employer 
[in this case, the voters of N.S.W.] to have gathered the appropriate 
evidence, to have demonstrated by analysis that there is a strong 
probability of misbehaviour by the Employee sufficient to warrant 
dismissal, and to publish the evidence and analysis to the Employee 
to enable it to be checked".

[Yes, I'd agree with Kim and Skeggsy that insufficient care with 
passwords, and hence presumably breach of conditions of use, 
constitute misbehaviour by an MP - although whether the sanction of 
dismissal is appropriate, well, let's get a sense of proportion here 
fellas.

[Unsurprisingly, I'd also agree that there's a privacy aspect to the 
leak.  Yes, if the report turns out to be materially correct, then 
the public interest (in hypocrisy by a morals-based politician) 
outweighs Fred's privacy interest;  but otherwise I can't see that it 
does.]


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
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Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University