The state is pulling the plug on employees who watch Netflix, Hulu and other online video services on their work computers.

Officials are blocking certain video services on the state network after discovering that public workers are “monopolizing a significant portion of our state’s available Internet bandwidth” by using media streaming services during work hours, Todd Nacapuy, chief information officer at the Office of Information Management and Technology, wrote in an Aug. 11 internal memo intended to be distributed to more than 20,000 employees in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

“There is significant cost to the state to increase Internet bandwidth. The state has finite IT resources and increasing these resources requires an investment of state funds that are also limited,” he said in the letter obtained by the Star-Advertiser. “Further, using IT resources for nonstate purposes adversely affects our collective performance of state business.”

Officials didn’t quantify the scope of the problem recently discovered and couldn’t say how much time employees are spending watching videos. When asked how much the state is investing for increased Internet bandwidth, Keith DeMello, spokesman for the Office of Information Management and Technology, said the government “currently has sufficient bandwidth … if those resources are used for state purposes consistent with policy.”

“As more government services move online, we took this action to ensure that they are fast, cost-effective and cost-efficient,” he said. “Action was taken to ensure it did not impede state business.”

The state doesn’t know what videos employees are watching while on the clock, only the service that is being used, he said. X-rated sites were not among the top services using bandwidth — a computer network’s transmission capacity.

The note was copied to Gov. David Ige, Senate President Ronald Kouchi, House Speaker Joseph Souki, Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, Chief of Staff Mike McCartney, executive branch directors and deputies as well as the newly established Security Operations Center.

Nacapuy went on to say that it is the duty of employees to “follow appropriate use guidelines and not waste IT resources, including deliberately performing acts that unfairly monopolize resources to the exclusion of others.”

The notice follows an Aug. 7 letter from James Nishimoto, director of the Department of Human Resources Development, informing directors and deputies that government employees are violating the state’s IT resources policy.

“It has come to our attention that employees (are) accessing the Internet to access Netflix, Hulu and other streaming media sites through their state-assigned computers during work time,” he wrote in the memo. “Use of the Internet for downloading audio, video and picture files is strictly prohibited unless they are work-related.”

Netflix and Hulu are on-demand video streaming services that allow consumers to watch movies, TV shows and other online media.

Violations of state policy could result in immediate revocation of computer use, disciplinary action including discharge from employment, or civil and criminal liability, Nishimoto said in the letter.

The state established a Security Operations Center in early 2014 to identify cybersecurity threats and monitor the information flowing out of the network, DeMello said.

“So we’re able to identify what applications or services are using that bandwidth, which made it possible for us to identify certain media streaming services,” he said. “It’s the first time the state of Hawaii ever did this.”

The state already blocks websites that fall within specific categories of risk, and some departments have their own filtering capabilities. Other services will be blocked if they encumber resources and do not comply with state policy, he said.

YouTube and other free media used by several departments for communication and education will remain accessible.

DeMello said there is no way to accurately or fairly calculate lost production since the state cannot verify how the video streaming services were used.

He added that some workers may be watching videos “in the same way people might have music playing (while working).”

“To be fair, many may have just run them as background noise,” he said. “We’re not necessarily making a judgment in terms of what’s acceptable or not. From a state perspective, to preserve bandwidth, we’re going to no longer make Netflix and Hulu accessible.”