Page | 1
INTERNET AND EMAIL POLICY
1. Internet and Email General Policy
1.1. The school has software and systems in place, which can monitor and record all Internet and all email activities. You should be aware that the security systems are capable of recording each web site visit and email message sent and received. No one should have an expectation of privacy related to his/her Internet and email usage. Our ICT Team review Internet activity and usage patterns on a regular basis. Internet and emails are filtered and monitored by Lightspeed Total Traffic Control Server.
1.2. We reserve the right to inspect /delete, bring to the attention of Senior Staff any files stored in user areas on the school network, emails and internet usage deemed unacceptable. This will be the
responsibility of the ICT Technical Support Team, under direction of the Technical Manager to randomly conduct regular searches of the network files and histories of sites visited for inappropriate use – This will be reported back to the Senior Managers, via the Technical Manager / Principal Officer.
1.3. The email system is provided for communication to staff, students, customers and suppliers for school/business related matters.
Email system abuse is not acceptable and failing to comply with this policy will be subject to disciplinary procedures.
1.4. The wilful or deliberate display and any emails of any kind of : • Obscene • Offensive • Illegal • Inaccurate • Racial • Prejudicial • Sexually explicit
• Or any other kind deemed unacceptable
Images or documents on the system are in contravention of the (LEA policy) and School policy on harassment, these files are classed as unacceptable. These types of files / materials may not be archived, stored, distributed, edited or recorded using the school network of computing resources. Disciplinary action will be taken against anyone failing to comply. When unacceptable files are found, ICT Support Team have a responsibility, Duty of Care and a jurisdiction to store these files as evidence in required investigations and passed to the SMT.
1.5. The school's Internet facilities and computing resources must not be used knowingly to break the law. Use of any school resources for illegal activity is grounds for dismissal and the school will co-operate with any legitimate law enforcement activity. These facilities must also be used in conjunction with “Birmingham Education Acceptable use of ICT”.
http://www.myweb.bgfl.org/bgflnet/content/view/202/118 : Abortion Miscellaneous Adult Material News and Media Advocacy Producting PG Bandwidth PG Racism Business and Economy Religion
Education Social Organisation Entertainment Society and Lifestyles Gambling Special Events
Games Sports
Government Tasteless
Health Travel
Illegal or Questionable User defined Information Technology Vehicles Intent Communication Violence Military and Extremist Weapons Pornography
tasteless/gross/hate/discriminative
1.6. Employees/students with Internet access may not download any software even if it has direct educational use. This can only be done if an arrangement with the Technical Manager is made, who then will arrange for the software to be correctly downloaded, licensed, archived and registered if required. Downloaded software must be used only under the terms of its licence and must be added to the appropriate inventory. Any software downloaded via the Internet onto the Arthur Terry network becomes the property of the school. All users of the school network will respect copyright of material. This must be tested in a safe trusted environment.
1.7. Employees may not upload/copy any software licenced to Arthur Terry School or data owned or licensed by the school unless explicitly authorised to do so by the Technical Manager.
1.8. The Internet at the school is accessed by the use of a LEA proxy server and a router. The computers do not allow access via the telephone system with modems and other service providers, thus being unable to bypass the School / BGFL filtering system. The school now has a voice over IP System, so no normal telephone lines are in school (except for the school fax line).
1.9. All access from the Grid to the Internet has to be made through the LEA filtering server, which runs software called N2H2 and the school’s internal internet filtering systems called Lightspeed Total Traffic Control. In order to deliver Internet access at the fastest possible speed to schools, the LEA filtering service now offers a standard level of filtering across all schools. The following categories of site are blocked –
• Pornography
• Strong and offensive language • Violence
• Chat rooms • Adults only
• Drugs (sites that promote or advocate recreational drug use) • Personal (dating)
• Gambling
• Hate/discrimination • Tasteless/Gross • Weapons
In addition, some sites not in these categories are also blocked, for example the World Wide Wrestling federation site, following many requests from schools, within the LEA. Note, many of the Social Networking sites, eg Facebook, Myspace and bebo – are blocked at the LEA level – requests to ……….. can be made if required.
Our school also has its own local filtering system, which will give additional control over access to the Internet. This will include being able to set access levels by person, computer and time of day,
Page | 3
giving more control over what can and cannot be accessed and ban individual users on the Grid or Internet. This list of categories are used on our internal filtering – categories are as follows:-
Costume Categories Allowed Category Allowed Staff Sites Igoogle
Normally Blocked Categories Local Category
Local–Block Local override of allowed domain Adult
Access-denied Access denied Adult-art Adult Art
Adult-bodyart Body art, tattoos, body piercing Adult-games Adult games
Adult-language Strong language Adult-lifestyle Adult lifestyles
Alcohol Production, promotion and sales of alcoholic beverages Drugs Site promoting illicit and illegal drug use
Offensive Websites considered to be offensive to adults and children Porn Pornography related sites
Porn-child Pornsites involving children Porn-de German pornography sites Porn-es Spanish pornography sites Porn-fr French pornography sites Porn-it Italian pornography sites Porn-jp Japanese pornography sites Porn-nl Dutch pornography sites Porn-pl Polish pornography sites Porn-pt Portuguese pornography sites Porn-ru Russian pornography sites
Suspicious Recently discovered sites with suspicious words or phrases Suspicious-script Websites whose only content is javascript – frequently used to
hide pornsites
Violence Sites promoting violence and anarchy Violence-hate Sites promoting hate against different groups Adult Adult products, services, situations and humour Gambling Gambling, casinos, betting, lottery and play to Forums, Chart, Email
Forums Unmoderated personal expression Forums-blog Weblogs
Forums-dating Dating websites like friendfinder, eharmony and match.com Forums-mail Email sites
Forums-newsgroups Newsgroups usenet and subscription newsletters Forums-personals Personals web pages and personal ads
Forums-social-networking Social networking and websites such as myspace, facebook and Orkut
Forums-Im Instant messaging Forums-P2P Peer to peer sites
Security
Parted Pay per click websites
Security-proxy Web proxy servers and open smtp relays
Security-warez Sites promoting illegal access and sharing of software and other copyrighted material
Security Security risks Security-hacking Computer hacking
Security-nettads Nettads, remote action tasks, internet server and client Applications
Security-phishing Websites of internet scams that try to get personal information Security-potentially-
Unwanted-applications Potentially unwanted applications Security-spyware Spyware – advertising supported software
Security-test Used for testing virus signatures and registry controls Security-virus Virus, malware, Trojans, backdowns, hacker tools Security-virus-ignore Virus signatures that should be ignored.
Normally Allowed Categories Local Category
Local-allow Local override of blocked domains Advertising
Ads Ad servers and advertising companies Ads-banner-ads Banner ads
Ads-html-ads HTML ads Ads-popup-ads Popup ads
Shopping-spam Shopping websites that use spam email for marketing Spam Sources of spam mail that does not involve porn, gambling or
drugs Business and Work
Ads-javascript-ads Javascript ads
Automobile Automobile and motorcycles Business Business
Business-construction Construction, building, plumbing, home improvement Business-finance Banking, stockmarkets, insurance and financial news Business-jobs Employment search, offerings and support
Business-manufacturing Manufacturing, industrial and shipping companies Business-real-estate Real estate, home, offices
Computers Computers and internet Computers-consumer-
Electronics Consumer electronics – TV’s, cell phones. MP3 phones Computer-filehosting Image, file hosting, shareware, freeware websites Ham Legitimate sources of email
Law Law firms, courts and legal matters Microsoft Microsoft and related sites Education
Education Education and reference sites
Education-arts Art, art history, architecture, graphic design and illustration Education-games Educational games for kids
Page | 5
Education-lifestyles Education about lifestyles – gay – lesbian, alternate Education-media Educational streaming media resources
Education-music Music education, history, instruments, marching and music Education-science Science and Technology
Education-sex High school level sex education websites Education-social-science Social sciences
Family Life
Family Family life, cooking, gardening, home improvement Family-food Restaurants, grocery stores, recipes
Family-health Health care
Family-religion Religion and spiritual Kids and Teens
Kids-and-teens Kid safe websites
Kids-and-teens-animals Cats, dogs, horses and other animals Kids-and-teens-chat Monitored chat websites suitable for kids Miscellaneous
Errors Content database errors waiting to be purged Expired Domains whose registration has expired General General interest
Plagarism Websites that sell exam pages, research papers and other ways to help students cheat
Recreation
Hobby Hobbies, crafts, collecting
Humour Humour, puzzles and brain teasers
Music Band and artists, concerts, DJ’s, lyrics, songwriting and record Labels
Shopping Shopping sites Shopping-activity Auctions
Shopping-office-supplies Major office supply websites Sports Sports sites
Sports-fantasy Fantasy football, baseball, soccer, etc Sports-martial-arts Martial arts
Sports-youth High schools sports teams and youth sports leagues
Travel Hotels, resorts, cruises, transportation and vacation offerings Audio-video Sources MP3’a, Mpegs and streaming audio/video
Entertainment Movies, TV, radio, celebrities
Games Games, online, cartoons, wallpaper and screen savers Reference
Directory Directories and portals abut specialised topics News News and magazines
Search Major search engines Society
Government Federal, state, local and international government Society Culture, issues, ethnicity, people
Society-politics Politics, political activism, political issues
World Sites about regions and languages around the world World-cn World websites – Chinese
World-de World websites – German World-es World websites – Spanish World-fr World websites – France World-it World websites – Italy World-jp World websites – Japanese World-kr World websites – Korean World-nl World websites – Netherlands World-pl World websites – Polish World-pe World websites – Portuguese World-ru World websites - Russian
1.10. The school will never publish photographs of, or name, individual children on their intranet / I
internet websites. It will be careful to only publish photographs of individual groups of pupils and only described them as such (e.g. Children investigating a science problem) The school respects the IRP (Intellectual Property Rights) of pupil’s work and will gain permission before any is published on the school website.
1.11. Internet rules and codes of conduct are issued to the students and staff prior to their arrival at Arthur Terry. This must be signed and returned to the school, and then it is kept on file. Internet rules and codes of conduct are also displayed clearly in all ICT rooms and other appropriate areas.
Employees releasing protected information via a newsgroup, chat or Email - whether or not the release is inadvertent - will be subject to all penalties under existing data security policies.
Updated: 01/12/2009
By: CB
Adopted by Curriculum Committee:
Review due:
Page | 7
SAFE USE OF COMPUTER NETWORKS POLICY
STAFF USER CODE OF CONDUCT
Please read the following carefully
Internet
1. I understand that my use of the Internet will be monitored and a record made of all worldwide web sites visited and that downloaded material/files stored in my work area can be inspected.
2. When I use the Internet I will identify myself honestly, accurately and completely. 3. I will not use the Internet to break the law.
4. I will not download copyright material.
5. I will not access, display, store, edit or distribute any sexually explicit and/or offensive material. 6. I will not access, display, store or distribute any racist materials.
7. I will not use the School's Internet facilities for private business.
8. I will not use the Internet for releasing protected software and/or data about Arthur Terry School to any individual, news group or chat line or for any unauthorised public speaking.
9. I will not use the Arthur Terry Internet to commit any acts of misuse of school assets or resources or misappropriation or theft of intellectual property.
10. I will not download images or videos unless they are explicitly education-related materials and only then by agreement with the Technical Managers.
11. I will not use the School's Internet facilities to propagate any virus, worm, Trojan horse or trap-door program code. This is in accordance with the School's anti-virus policy.
12. I will not use the School's Internet facilities to disable or overload any system or network, or to circumvent and system intended to protect the privacy or security of another user.
13. I will not use Email for any abusive purposes, sexual or racial harassment.
14. I will not use obscene, abusive or sexually explicit language or images in Emails I send. 15. I will not send Emails that could be deemed libellous or defamatory.
16. I will not use Email to make unauthorised public statements about Arthur Terry School. 17. I will be courteous and use the correct etiquette when sending Email.
General Policy
1. Email services are provided to support the use of simple messaging and not for the transfer of large documents for which alternative procedures are available.
2. Email documents are not private property and so form part of the administrative records of the school. 3. Retained Email documents will be disclosed to individuals and/or outside agencies as required by Data
Protection and Freedom of Information Legislation.
4. Email services are for work related use only, and are strictly monitored. Any employee deemed to be abusing the email system for non-work related emails will be subject to disciplinary procedures.
