I agree with your latter remark, but how will you know who did what without a proper accounting?
From my perspective arguing against secure external audits is similar to arguing against internal audits/monitoring.
Clearly, as you state, employees who violate your workplace code of ethics should be disciplined or fired. But you need to find out about those violations in order to do that.
I don't see audits as any more Orwellian than network monitoring by IT staff. In either case if the employee has nothing to hide, they have nothing to worry about.
My point wrt IT staff wasn't that they were any less (or more) responsible for at-work piracy than the general staff.
My point is that enforcement efforts to prevent piracy on work networks and other legally dangerous/unethical activities is directed through them, so no one is watching the watchers so to speak (unless you use audits).
I feel in general periodic audits may be unpleasant for IT folks, but are a necessary evil. Piracy is far from the only issue such audits can examine.
But would you agree that as an employer there is a need to occasionally inspect all your staff's digital at-work behavior -- including IT workers?
I fail to see why this has anything to do with the IT department, other than IT is the way material is accessed. There is no way IT has the clout or should they have.
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