DOC staff blocked from accessing prohibited websites 51,000 times in one month

A DOC staff member said staff were redirected to porn sites from legitimate sites. Photo / 123RF

Staff at the Department of Conservation have been blocked 148 times from accessing pornography websites since the end of January.

Of the prohibited X-rated sites staff attempted to enter from January 29 until now, 54 were referrals from other sites where a URL can be embedded in a legitimate site and 94 were direct access requests.

The most popular sites staff unsuccessfully tried to click on were stripchat.com, chattypics.com and ondgk.sexboys.org which were all blocked 14 times, according to an Official Information Act response to MediaWorks.

During July 31 and August 30 there were 51,000 attempts to access other blocked sites that fell under 19 different categories. During the six months ended August 2019 300,000 were blocked for security and safety reasons.

The classifications included pornography, marijuana, hacking, gambling, dating, web chat, nudity and risqué, malicious websites, lingerie and swimsuit, illegal or unethical and brokerage and trading, MediaWorks reported.

DOC's deputy director general corporate services Rachel Bruce told the Herald the organisation was confident staff were not even aware they were accessing pornographic sites.

URLs for porn sites were frequently embedded in legitimate sites which meant people could be referred or directed to blocked sites, she said. DOC's firewall blocked links and referrals to restricted sites.

"We are confident that DOC staff are not searching for adult or X-rated websites. Access to the websites is blocked in any case."

Last week the Government confirmed it would be cracking down on online pornography sites.

Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin has ordered officials to prepare law changes restricting New Zealanders' access to online pornography with the hope of the proposals being introduced before next year's election.

The main focus was on policy options preventing harm to children and young people from online pornography.