Staff electronic communication safety policy agreement.

(including the internet, email, mobile ‘phones, ipods/ other mp3 players, PDAs, digital cameras and other electronic devices).

Please read this policy carefully as you will be deemed to be aware of its contents.

1. Aims

The Mission of our School is to provide a high quality education within the context of a Christian environment. An understanding of the Roman Catholic faith, in line with the Gospel message, will underpin the whole work of the school.

The main aim will be to develop the self-esteem, dignity and respect of all members of the community by concentrating on each person's infinite worth in the eyes of God.

We want to encourage members of the St Peter’s community to make effective use of the Internet and other electronic communication devices. Such use should always be lawful and appropriate. It must not compromise the school’s information and computer systems nor have the potential to damage the school’s reputation.

2. Preamble

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that users of electronic communication methods at St Peter’s understand the way in which such technologies are to be used and aims to ensure that they are used effectively for their intended purpose.

3. Obligations

St Peters High School expects all users to use electronic communication methods responsibly and strictly according to the following conditions:

(For the purposes of this document, Internet usage means any connection to the Internet via Web browsing, external email or news groups.)

Users shall not:

§ Visit Internet sites, make, post, download, upload or pass on, material, remarks, proposals or comments that contain or relate to:

o pornography (including child pornography)

o promoting discrimination of any kind

o promoting racial or religious hatred

o promoting illegal acts

o any other information which may be offensive to colleagues

(It is acknowledged that in certain planned curricular activities, access to otherwise deemed inappropriate sites may be beneficial for educational use (for example investigating racial issues). Any such access should be preplanned and recorded so that it can be justified if required.)

§ Visit sites or transfer (communicate) material that might be defamatory or incur liability on the part of St Peter’s High School or adversely impact on the image of the school

§ Upload, download, or otherwise transmit (make, produce or distribute) commercial software or any copyrighted materials belonging to third parties outside of the school, or to the school itself without appropriate authorization from the copyright owners.

§ Intentionally interfere with the normal operation of the Internet connection, including the propagation of computer viruses and sustained high volume network traffic (sending or receiving of large files or sending and receiving of large numbers of small files or any activity that causes network congestion) that substantially hinders others in their use of the Internet

§ Use St Peter’s High School facilities for running a private business

§ Enter into any personal transaction that involves St Peter’s High School in any way

§ Use the Internet for soliciting, representing personal opinions or revealing confidential information or in any other way that could reasonably be considered inappropriate

4. Notes

Monitoring

Use of the Internet will be monitored to see whether users are complying with the policy. Any potential misuse identified will result in sanctions being taken against those involved.

§ Incidents which appear to involve deliberate access to Web sites, newsgroups and online groups that contain the following material will be reported to the police (please refer to the procedures below):

o images of child abuse (images of children, apparently under 16 years old) involved in sexual activity or posed to be sexually provocative

o adult material that potentially breaches the Obscene Publications Act in the UK

o criminally racist material in the UK

(If inappropriate material is accessed accidentally, this should immediately be reported to the ICT management group so that this can be taken into account in monitoring.)

What to do if you receive an abusive electronic communication.

The ICT management group will investigate all instances of abusive emails or other electronic content that are raised. If possible, action will be taken to resolve the issue.

Procedure

All abuse complaints should be logged in writing, otherwise (for legal reasons) we cannot act on them. Please send an email to the member of the leadership team with responsibility for ICT across the school (currently this is Jan Daines) stating the nature of your complaint. If you have been the victim of an abusive email please include copies of the email, full headers plus dates and times. Please note that we are only able to release information direct to the source of the abuse involved - we are unable to release information to third-parties (eg from the person receiving the abuse) due to legal restrictions.

We will investigate all complaints of abuse and take action accordingly.

If you are receiving spam email, please refer the matter to the ‘IT Services’ team.

What to do if you find inappropriate or illegal material on a computer.

The flow diagram below (taken from SWGfL’s security policy) summarises the action that you should take should you find inappropriate or illegal material on a computer.

Procedure

Use the flow diagram to help you decide what action to take.