British businesses are moving to protect their information security and improve productivity by preventing employees from accessing social networking websites, new research suggests.

According to a survey conducted by security firm Clearswift, half of human resources bosses have launched disciplinary procedures against a fellow staff member for accessing sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

It was added that some 65 per cent of British firms now prevent access to these websites from their machines and network as a precaution.

This is despite Clearswift's suggestion that the networking sites could be harnessed by both large and small businesses.

"Consumers are increasingly turning to social networking on the internet for all aspects of their daily life and as a result they expect to be able to interact with businesses through the same media," said Clearswift's Stephen Millard.

The firm offered the example of T-Mobile, which has embraced social networking to use Facebook searches as part of its graduate recruitment process in order to gather more information about their hopeful job candidates.