Detecting Sexual Harassment in Workplace Electronic Communications Networks

Abstract

Sexual harassment has been a problem within organisations for some time. Its manifestation in electronic communication networks can be seen to amount to cyber-bullying or cyber-stalking. Through looking at records relating to an instance of sexual harassment at a higher education institution, including from that member of staff's workplace, and those created by referrals to the police, the court service, and their workplace, this chapter shows how a piece of assistive technology called the ‘Protective Technology for Ensuring Guardianship of Environmental Resources' (PROTEGER) can automatically detect sexual harassment narratives. In this context, ‘environmental resources' should refer to both humans and documents. Human resource managers would be better equipped to deal with disputes between staff if PROTEGER was running on their local area network as it might not be a matter of one member of staff's word against another's.