Employee Use of Internet At Work: Policy Proposals - Essay Example

Employees’ use of the internet at work may amount to the tort of negligence. This tort arises when the employee has a duty of care to the plaintiff which in most cases may be the employer (Ruschmann & Marzilli, 2006). The duty of care requires that an employee should avoid careless acts that may harm his or her employer as well as other employees. Furthermore, negligence is a possible tort if the action of the employee caused harm to the plaintiff or showed that he acted in a manner contrary to that of a reasonable man by virtue of his inappropriate use of the internet.

The intentional tort of trespass is another wrong that can be committed by employees using the internet at work. Trespass in the workplace may refer to an employee who is authorized to use the internet but then decides to apply it for nonbusiness purposes ((Lau & Johnson, 2011). When personnel use the internet inappropriately, they could download a rogue program that may make it difficult for other employees to use the computer because of the presence of viruses. In fact, rogue programs can affect all the files stored in a computer system and thus prove costly for the company.

Vicarious liability is another possible tort in as far as employee internet use in an organization is concerned (Lau & Johnson, 2011). This tort is a legal doctrine which vests liability for any injuries to another party who has a relationship with the negligent person. In this case, the employer will bear liability for the employee’s misuse of the workplace internet. In other words, the employer will bear liability for those that the company owes a duty of care and have suffered harm or injury because of the employee’s lack of care.

Although the employee is the tortfeasor, the liability of his or her misuse of the internet can be imposed on the employer because of the assumption that the company