'Banter' culture spreads sexist and racist emails

Despite being warned for years of the risk of litigation, many companies are still failing to put in place filters to block racist and sexist emails from entering their network or being distributed internally.

According to the latest research, only 52 per cent of companies are blocking racist content while just 54 per cent are blocking sexist emails - causing one leading employment lawyer to brand the findings "a very real cause for concern".

David Warner, a partner at law firm Morrison & Foerster, told silicon.com that companies must start doing everything they can to protect their staff and protect themselves from potential litigation, because what one group of employees deem 'harmless banter' others may see as offensive.

A company that can show all reasonable measures were taken to protect staff from intentional or accidental offence stands on a far firmer legal footing, said Warner.

"If a company has taken all the proper steps then it is unlikely to be liable if somebody runs amok," he told silicon.com.

Warner said putting filtering in place will demonstrate that a company has taken steps to guard against these kinds of problems but he also urged firms to put in place effective policies.

"There needs to be a policy in place," he said. "But it's not enough to just put it in a handbook and forget about it."

A proper process of end user education needs to be put in place, he said.

Certainly cases of companies who got it wrong are all too common. Four years ago one high profile case saw a Dell employee sacked for sending smutty emails, yet four years on companies are still failing to crack down. And there have been other, more high profile instances since.

Alyn Hockey, product director at content security specialist Clearswift, told silicon.com the biggest issues arise from the distribution of email internally.

"In most organisations internal messaging is not so strictly controlled as external messages. Companies may block profane or offensive emails at the gateway but do little to control them spreading internally."

"This gateway approach is because companies see the value of blocking viruses and spam but don't yet see the value of blocking offensive messages, or the threat to the business of not doing so."

But Hockey said this is "more of an HR issue than an IT issue".

"This kind of content is a threat. But it's not a network threat, it's a business threat," he added.

The biggest single issue is with companies drafting policies and rules to decide what is considered inappropriate, while not breaking down the efficient flow of data. Hockey cited examples such as police forces or companies handling claims or complaints where emails may include, as statement of fact, language or terms which are by their very nature offensive.

The research was conducted by TNS IT & Telecoms Research Group and commissioned by McAfee. It also revealed that 52 per cent of respondents are unaware of their responsibilities regarding email and compliance to regulations such as the Data Protection Act, HIPPA and Sarbanes-Oxley.

Although that figure also sounds very low its similarity to the figure for blocking offensive email suggests these recent issues have taken priority over those issues companies should have been on top of some time ago.