Western Australia Police internet abuse

Courtesy of the Sunday Times, Perth Western Australia

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/internet-abuse-rife-among-000-cops/story-e6frg12c-1226518800665

OFFICERS in WA's 000 Police Operations Centre have been hauled before an internal inquiry for "widespread" internet abuse.

More than 20 officers routinely breached internet policy by spending hours on gambling websites and even looking at "mail-order brides", according to a source.

The operations nerve centre at the Midland Communications complex handles all emergency 000 calls to police and dispatches officers and vehicles on jobs. "There were people gambling, placing bets on horses and footy, tennis, you name it," the police insider said.

"You knew when someone was watching a movie because they would have their feet up."

The insider claims:

* Officers and civilians spent the football season tipping and updating Supercoach profiles.

* At least two officers were gambling on horse races and other sports..

* Several officers accessed internet dating sites, while others watched clips on YouTube and shopped on eBay.

* At least one person brought a laptop to work to trade on the stock market.

It's understood a group of officers received emails calling them before Internal Affairs after their internet use was flagged as inappropriate earlier this year.

It comes as staff at the nearby Police Assistance Centre, for non-emergency calls, are pleading for more resources, following a 20 per cent increase in call volumes in the past two years.

The Sunday Times put the examples of internet misuse to WA Police and a spokeswoman said: "It has been confirmed by our Police Operations Centre that investigations into certain incidents of inappropriate computer use were carried out and have now concluded".

The WA Police Code of Conduct handbook states examples of inappropriate internet use "include but are not limited to accessing of pornographic sites, personal business use such as share trading, interactive games, downloading MP3 or similar files, games and unauthorised copying of written material".

A WA Police Union spokeswoman said the union was aware of the investigation and provided advice to a few officers.

The Sunday Times understands some staff from the centre had their internet access cut off following the investigation.

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I can understand that the call centre guys and girls would get bored when the phones are not running hot but crikey, surely commonsense should prevail. I've been retired for six years now and even before that we knew internal investigations were doing random spot checks on internet use.

Perhaps their IT policy isn't robust enough and specific sites should be blocked as they are in the UK Forces

Sites such as eBay and Facebook simply do not load unless you have the right permissions set

It's not rocket science