How much privacy does an employee have when using a work laptop at home?

Not much, it seems, after a senior public servant was sacked after Googling the word "knockers" and looking at legal pornography. That was despite the access being out of work hours and the public servant using his own internet service provider.

The public servant, from the Commonwealth Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, was sacked after a software program, called Spector360, was set up by the department to catch any use of the word "knockers".

The program, which takes a snapshot of a user's desktop every 30 seconds, was then used to unearth the internet history of the man with a 25-year career with the public service. It uncovered his usage even though he had deleted his browser history.

The public servant, whom this website has decided not to name, argued in the Federal Court in Canberra that the searches by Spector360 while he was at home were a "gross" breach of his privacy and the department had given him the laptop for personal use.