16/02/2010

Several officers at some of the UK's leading law enforcement agencies have been dismissed in the past 18 months for misusing social networking services, according to a new report.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Scotland Yard and the Metropolitan Police have issued a combined total of 70 disciplinary procedures, resulting in a number of them receiving formal misconduct charges or being let go.

Scotland Yard launched procedures against 28 officers over the period and MoJ issued three warnings and four firings over misuse of social networking sites.

The Metropolitan Police said that disciplinary actions were taken against five civilian staff.

A MoJ spokesman said: 'MoJ policy is that staff cannot access social networking sites for personal reasons.

'They are only allowed to access the sites for professional reasons if they are able to provide a strong business case showing they need to use them to perform their role.'

All authorities in question said that the offences related to using sites such as Twitter and Facebook in a way that was not allowed by the agencies and could possibly bring the services into disrepute.