A recent report in the Times, has raised the issue of large companies potentially using e-mail reading programs in order to monitor staff correspondence.

Some privacy groups have spoken out against the idea, describing the use of such programs as illegitimate snooping, with others questioning their legality.

One program provided by IT software company Contact Networks can analyse the frequency of an employees's communications with contacts.

Some large law firms and banks have taken up the technology. Taylor Wessing, a London law firm claims that use of the software has enabled it to add 80,000 contacts to its database.

Despite this, Gareth Crossman, director of policy at Liberty, told the Times: "We would definitely be concerned about any company that had a blanket monitoring policy."

Monitoring employee communication is not illegal as long as consent is obtained.

Jeffery Mann from Gartner claims that several of the larger software firms had stayed clear of developing e-mail reading programs because of fears over privacy.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'