Nearly 10% of men download porn at work

Employees are increasingly using their work computers to download music and pornography and gossip with their colleagues, according to a study released today.

The Trust and Risk in the Workplace Study found that 31 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women download music at work, while nine per cent of men and four per cent of women download obscene videos and images.

But the biggest vice remains using email to indulge in office gossip. Men are almost as guilty as women, with 33 per cent doing so compared to 35 per cent of their female colleagues.

Dr Monica Whitty of Queen’s University, Belfast, who led the research project, said employees are putting their organisations’ computer networks at risk with their behaviour.

Americans are the biggest downloaders of pornography and music, she found, with Australians the least likely to download pornography at work.