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Child Pornography on Workplace Computers

By Marjorie J. Peerce and Carolyn Barth Renzin
October 28, 2010

Possessing child pornography is potentially such a serious crime that institutions take pains to keep it off their premises. New York University, for example, decided last summer not to accept the archives of artist Larry Rivers after it became public that the collection included films and videos of Rivers' two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by their father about their developing breasts. Without deciding whether the films were in fact pornographic, the university played it safe.

So what are the implications of having child pornography on the premises? In businesses, child pornography generally is discovered by IT personnel. Or, if a corporation undergoes an unrelated internal investigation in which all computers, hard drives, e-mail servers, etc. are frozen and searched for responsive material, such a search can to lead to the discovery of child pornography stored on the corporation's server or on an individual's hard drive. What can/must/should be done as a result?

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