A quarter of Brits use work devices to watch porn, new survey reveals

Nearly one in four Brits use their work devices to watch porn and surf the dark web, a new survey has found — and CEOs are the worst offenders.

People are using their work phones and computers to secretly access porn for an average of two hours per week, or up to 100 hours per year.

The survey of 2,000 British workers by Express VPN also found that 24% of Brits spend 101 hours per year accessing the dark web on work devices, and 29% admitted to buying cryptocurrency on their devices.

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Using work devices to access the dark web and porn sites could potentially open up your business to a privacy and security risk, experts warn.

But the shocking statistics don't stop there. Nearly one third (30%) of respondents said they use their work phones and computers for gambling – something they spend up to two hours per week doing. While 32% use the devices for gaming, and 35% spend over two and a half hours per week streaming TV shows and movies.

A further half (47%) of respondents said they spend an average of two hours and 42 minutes browsing social media on their work phone or computer during company time each week – which equates to 140 hours per year, the equivalent of three and a half full 40-hour working weeks in one year.

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The research found that CEOs (Chief Executive Officers), CTOs (Chief Technology Officers), and COOs (Chief Operations Officers) were the most likely to use their work devices for personal activities.

In fact, 61% of the 77 C-level executives (the most senior people in a business) who responded to the survey said they use their work devices to watch porn – which was 37% higher than the average worker. They also spent more time watching porn than average, clocking five hours and 30 minutes of porn viewing time during a working week.

Two-thirds (68%) of employees also admitted to using their devices to surf the dark web, with the average time spent on the dark web being six hours and 51 minutes.

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Nearly three-quarters of C-level employees admitted to gambling on their work devices, while similarly, 74% looked for new jobs, 75% browsed social media, 77% shopped online, and 73% streamed TV and movies.

“It’s concerning how much time Brits are spending on personal activities during working hours, especially as they are using their work devices for these tasks. This isn’t just about productivity, it can adversely affect your company’s privacy and security risk levels,” Lauren Hendry Parsons, privacy advocate at Express VPN says.

“Business leaders need to ensure they are equipping employees with a solid security education, helping them to understand the risks they would be introducing and how to avoid things like phishing attacks. Employees must understand that their usage of company devices will be visible in some capacity to the company, so it’s certainly worth thinking twice before spending a little personal time with a work device.”

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