Whatever equipment you provide to staff must be safe and comply with health and safety rules. Its electrical safety should be inspected periodically and employee workstations should be risk assessed to ensure that their use will not pose a threat to health.
Usually, employers will be liable to third parties for what their employees do using their equipment in connection with their employment. This is known as ‘vicarious liability’. This means that, if an employee’s use of IT is illegal, defamatory, discriminatory, breaches copyright or confidentiality, constitutes bullying or otherwise causes a legal problem, the employer is on the hook.
Issues can arise in connection with inappropriate or excessive personal use of equipment. Where employees damage or lose equipment negligently, employers sometimes wish to deduct the cost from their pay. However, care must be taken to ensure such a deduction is lawful. In most cases, the employer will likely only be able to make deductions from the employee’s wage if this is permitted under the terms of the employment contract or if the employee agrees to it. In most situations, employers should make a relevant insurance claim for the lost equipment.
Increasingly, employers want to examine and make use of information about employees' use of IT equipment (eg by monitoring email and internet use), to make employment decisions. This raises issues of privacy and data protection as well as the fairness of disciplinary action.