Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AiBU to think I'm going to get the sack!!!

38 replies

somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:22

Ex partner (an IT bod) came over tonight to help me setup the broadband i've specifically moved to, to get better parental controls as very innocent DS (11) is going to secondary school in Sept and I dont want him to be able to google 'rude' stuff . Ex had laptop. I watched over his shoulder as he fiddled around, setting up and testing the parental controls. Of course, the testing involved typing in the word 'porn' and seeing what websites he could still open and promptly closing them. Then it suddenly hit me: I'd given him my WORK LAPTOP. And I'll add, I work in a school!! So, effectively, my work laptop has been used to access porn sites! All be it for less than a second. All be it in totally innocent circumstances (parental controls and broadband pages in the history too).

I cant sleep. I'm not techy. Im sure my school logs stuff. I'm going to get sacked!

I'm so fricking stupid!

OP posts:
EveryoneElsie · 09/06/2016 00:23

No you wont be sacked. A web search to test your parental controls is not downloading anything.
Dont worry about it.

MumOnTheRunCatchingUp · 09/06/2016 00:24

Oh dear.... Yes, this is possibly going to be flagged up

They may accept your story tho

justdontevenfuckingstart · 09/06/2016 00:25

If your school logs stuff then they will have seen it all just not porn I would think, an explanation and history check would back this up.

fatmomma99 · 09/06/2016 00:26

Write a report of what has happened, why and who was there and give it to the HT tomorrow morning. If you have an email or text stream between you and your ex documenting what you need and why, include this with the report.

Don't wait for this to be discovered.

Does your DS use your work lap top for personal use?

Did anything that got clicked on involve pictures of a child? That would be more worrying for you, I think.

I'm sure this isn't as bad as you're worried about. Try and get some sleep.

tigerdriverII · 09/06/2016 00:28

Please don't worry. They won't be monitoring your every (or any!) move. You have a great explanation if you need one. Depending on your relationship with your EX you could email him to confirm what you were doing, and ask him to respond.

Also, they will google rude stuff!

brittabot · 09/06/2016 00:29

I would mention to whoever has provided the laptop. I know of someone who was sacked (in a commercial environment) for looking at porn on work laptop - but he actively did so! Just explain and you'll be fine.

tigerdriverII · 09/06/2016 00:30

And goes without saying that you don't use work laptops for anything but work!

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:30

I deleted the three or so rude sites off the history and kept the broadband setup and parental controls then screen grabbed it as 'evidence' before clearing my history. Have no idea if that will help.
What an idiot I am. I'm not going to sleep a wink tonight.

OP posts:
2nds · 09/06/2016 00:30

If they find that you had been looking for porn etc they'd also figure out that you had set up parental controls. I'd go in and explain the situation to the head teacher just in case they ever do look into the laptop's history, perhaps tomorrow or the next day.

I can't see how this could be an offence, unless no one else is allowed to use the laptop?

2nds · 09/06/2016 00:34

BTW they will only look into your laptop if they feel there is a cause for concern. I'd be more worried incase one of these sites has put some sort of spyware or tracker on the laptop, I'm not sure what that would be called. But I believe in order for this to be checked out you'd have to own up to what happened.

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:36

Okay. This is helping. I have a great relationship with Ex and he's quite a senior IT bod. He can vouch and would put his name to it.

Fatmomma99 - nothing was clicked on and the pages were open for less than a second. I think it was three different sites in between the parental controls site.

Feeling a bit more chilled now.

OP posts:
OlennasWimple · 09/06/2016 00:38

I thought school-issued work laptops would come with filters already set up so you couldn't access adult material?

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:39

Going to take it to IT and explain I think. Thanks people!

OP posts:
fatmomma99 · 09/06/2016 00:39

Ok, love, I think you're going to be ok.... If what you're talking about is the menu that google brought up, I think you're absolutely fine.

If anything got clicked on, even if immediately closed you'd have more explaining to do. But just a menu? There's nothing wrong there.

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:41

I've never tried to access anything Olennas so I didn't know. I think the filters must only work when the machine is on the school network.

OP posts:
Artistic · 09/06/2016 00:42

I work in IT. If anything is going to be found it will only be IF & WHEN you logon to the school network. That's when the server can sync up & see your laptop. Until then you should be ok. More so if you ensure your laptop history/cache/temp files are all removed.

In any case just informing the school will help your case, but if you do as above there won't be anything concrete for the server to find and log.

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:47

Fatmomma99 -it was just the 'landing' page of those porn websites. So full of very rude pictures/gifs/videos/links etc but as soon as the page was open DP shut it then went back to parental controls, fiddled with keywords, then back to Google, typed in 'porn' and clicked on the first page that came up. Did this about 4 times. 1 time it worked and the site was blocked the other 3, ended up on rude pages for a second.

OP posts:
Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:49

I mean Ex-P!

OP posts:
badabadabadabwee · 09/06/2016 00:51

Actually I think you management will be more concerned that you gave your laptop, with all its confidential information, to someone else to use. There will be an expectation that no one should have access to that laptop other than you.

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:52

That's incredibly reassuring Artistic. I have screen grabs of the broadband setup which I can also use. I still can't believe i was so thoughtless!

OP posts:
Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 00:53

I dont have anything confidential stored on it and I was supervising- but yes. Good point. :(.

OP posts:
Liiinooo · 09/06/2016 00:57

I used to share an office with a secondary school IT team. A standard part of the work is producing regular (think 2-3 times a week) reports on searched words. In every single search the word 'porn' was the most frequently used - and the most frequently blocked, on every staff laptop and every PC including those accessible by students. It was so routine it was unremarkable. . Alarm bells only went off if there were worrying adjectives (eg UNDER AGE porn or RAPE porn) or if there were repeated searches. A one off enquiry will be seen for exactly what it was - a check that controls were effective

I wouldn't give this another milliseconds thought.

blackbirdmilkshake · 09/06/2016 00:58

They didn't give you a laptop for your child to use

Original poster
somortified78 · 09/06/2016 01:00

Liiinoo - that's made me feel so, so much better. Thank you! Flowers

OP posts:
AdjustableWench · 09/06/2016 01:02

I doubt anyone will ever check unless you give them a reason to.
I'm more worried (as a card-carrying Freudian) that you referred to your ex as DP... Wink