Royal London, the mutual life and pension company, has
installed new security software to snoop on the computer activity
of its 2,900 staff across the UK.
Designed by supplier 3ami, the software is being used to enforce
“sensible rules relating to the personal use of e-mail and the
internet”.
Royal London is using 3ami’s Monitoring and Audit System (MAS).
Royal London group IT security manager Nick Harwood said, “Although
the system will let us, we do not sit and secretly watch what
people are doing day-to-day, but we do consider it our
responsibility to be able to check, if we need to, how our IT is
being used.”
He said, “MAS is a non-intrusive system that complements
existing security and enables us, in the case of a well-grounded
allegation, to see what the reality was.”
The system allows London to monitor actions undertaken by each
PC and store these actions in a database which can be interrogated
either on a daily basis or over a longer period of time.
MAS is also being used as a deterrent against the theft of data
files – including their e-mailing to a third party, by copying or
printing them or putting them on a CD, floppy or memory stick.
The system is also used to deter staff from sending or handling
pornography, illegal images and racist and sexist material.
Harwood said, “We already have other security solutions in place
to prevent some types of misconduct - access to certain types of
website, for example - but there are sometimes ways around those.
MAS won’t stop it, but it means we can find out later.”
Royal London said it consulted staff before deploying the
system.