New system catching Internet abuse in office

A number of officials have been disciplined for using work time for online activities that were unrelated to their jobs. They were caught by the anti-graft department in Beijing's Pinggu district through an electronic monitoring system installed last year.

The district's commission of discipline inspection said on Tuesday that the system is designed to supervise functionaries' online activities during working hours, and that more than 70 public organs in the area are under electronic surveillance.

"I found an official who had 1,000 clicks on porn websites in a day, and I traced his IP address. I found out that he frequently visited porn websites during working hours over a three-month period," an official at the commission said on condition of anonymity.

In April, another official at the department head level in the district was found using work time for trading stocks online and was disciplined.

Officials in about 20 public entities in the district have been found with irregularities involving the misuse of work time, including surfing online, since the surveillance system was put in place. More than 200 IP addresses are involved.

The commission said it mainly looks into those who play video games, trade stocks, view porn or shop online. It will collect feedback about disciplinary actions after the surveillance results are reported to each entity.

The system employs key words to trace Internet activities that are irrelevant to work tasks and enables the commission to lock the IP addresses of all the public entities it oversees.

The most severe penalties include "being shifted to other positions", which usually suggests demotion, the commission said, adding that computer misbehavior violates discipline in the workplace, so penalties are determined by the units where the violators work.

A month ago, 76 public servants in Haikou, Hainan province, were disciplined for slacking at work, according to the city's inspection authorities.