BY NOW everyone knows that the boys in IT can read every e-mail we send from our corporate accounts. However, meticulously using web e-mail to keep your job-hunting a secret becomes pointless the moment you press print. Up to 70 per cent of office workers are prepared to peek at private papers left on office printers. The research, by Canon UK (which counts printers among its products) also shows that 18 per cent of respondents saw sensitive personnel records — home addresses, salary details, the lot — this way.

Shuffling through someone else’s private papers is one thing, but job hunters are increasingly facing the prospect of having someone rummage around inside their heads, according to Human Resources (May). Nemesysco, an Israeli technology company, has developed a polygraph that can help recruiters to check whether the eager candidate with a great CV is actually a drug-using knicker-thief who is not averse to taking the odd backhander from suppliers.

Which, perhaps, they use to fund their internet gambling habit. A million people a year take part in regular online betting sessions, reports www.personneltoday.com; and some of them do it at work, which can lead to all sorts of problems and possibly some finger-pointing at HR (“I told you we should have bought that lie detector but nooo, you insisted on getting all employees their own private printer”).

Tell-tale signs of a gambling addiction include “persistent lateness or absenteeism and excessive use of the telephone or rest rooms”. These signs may also indicate that you have recruited a 15-year-old girl.

Talk of teenagers leads naturally to talk of allowances, although BusinessWeek (May 8) is more interested in corporate credit cards and expense accounts than in how many pairs of shoes bought in a year is reasonable. The magazine reports that accounts departments are now using techniques such as data mining to keep A Very Close Eye on what receiptful employees claim back in costs.

The US Government isn’t exactly feeling the trust at the moment either. In a separate story, BusinessWeek reports that anti-terror laws could allow the Justice Department to snoop on corporate goings-on by bugging boardrooms or tapping CEOs’ cellphones. Or they could just stand by the office printer and see what comes out.

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