Study: Most people 'snoop' on their co-workers

Study: Most people ‘snoop’ on their co-workers

December 28, 2010 by Jared Bilski

Posted in: Benchmarking, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest news & views, Technology

When a co-worker pops into your cube for a quick chat, there’s a good chance he or she is getting more than just a little break from work.

According to the Visual Data Breach Risk Assessment Study by People Security, 71% of employees admitted to taking a glancing at a co-worker’s computer screen when they noticed certain information being displayed. Here’s the type of info that employees admitted to viewing:

spreadsheets (29%)
corporate e-mails (26%)
presentations (20%)
documents (18%), or
other sensitive corporate info (11%).

While most employees said their actions were unintentional, 15% admitted to being interested in what they saw, and 2% even said they were looking for the purpose of obtaining info.

Finance News You Need to Know
Get the news and analysis you need to make better financial decisions -
delivered weekly.

Join over 437,000 finance pros:

Tags: Computer screen, Corporate e-mails, Glancing, People Security, Presentations, Sensitive coporate info, Snoop, Spreadsheets, Visual Data Breach Risk Assessment Study