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What Information Can Your Employer See From Your Mobile Devices?

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TMCnews Featured Article


July 18, 2013

What Information Can Your Employer See From Your Mobile Devices?

By Joe Rizzo, TMCnet Contributing Writer


It is an undeniable fact that people will use their personal smartphones and tablets for work. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend is close to becoming a standard business practice. A lot of companies are putting policies in place that are setting the rules for how to use BYOD in the work environment.


So far the concerns have been one sided. The question has always been about how secure corporate data is outside the building when using a BYOD. There is another side to this coin, however. While there is a great amount of concern about the security of company information, there seems to be very little concern about what the company can see on employee mobile devices.

It seems that there is a large disconnect between employees and employers when it comes to what is or isn’t private on a mobile device. This comes to us from a new research survey conducted by MobileIron.

According to the press release from MobileIron, it found that 84 percent of respondents own the smartphone they use for work purposes. Close behind is the 82 percent who use their own tablets.

When responding to the question, “What information on your mobile device do you think your employer can see?” a surprising 41 percent were sure their employer did not have access to any information on their mobile device,

A further breakdown shows that 15 percent were not sure what information could or could not be seen. Of those surveyed, 28 percent thought that their company could only see their work email and attachments, while only 22 percent thought that their company can see their work contacts.

While you may think that your smartphone or tablet is your personal property, when you are using these devices to access corporate email, employers can see work email and attachments on a mobile device as easily as they can on a PC. That’s a gulf between expectations and reality.

It seems that, overall, the people who took part in the survey were most concerned with their employer seeing personal communications, such as email and text messages. It is a little surprising that less than half flagged location as a concern. I guess that these are people who are always where they are supposed to be, so why worry?

You can see this from the results when asked what their comfort level was with the employer having access to or being able to see a variety of information from their mobile devices. The following is a breakdown;

Personal email and attachments, 66 percent

  • Texts, 63 percent
  • Personal contacts, 59 percent
  • Photos, 58 percent
  • Videos, 57 percent
  • Voicemails, 55 percent
  • All the information contained in all the mobile apps, 54 percent
  • Details of phone calls and internet usage, 53 percent
  • Location, 48 percent
  • List of all the apps on the device, 46 percent
  • List of just the apps used for work, 29 percent
  • The information in the apps used for work, 29 percent
  • Company email and attachments, 21 percent
  • Company contacts, 20 percent

People in the age range of 18 to 34 years old were noticeably less comfortable and selected ‘not very comfortable’ or ‘not at all comfortable’ with their employer seeing personal data than people over 55 years old.

This is not really surprising. In general, the over 55 group has dealt with stricter corporate policies for a lot longer than the younger crowd. They are more accustomed to separating business and personal items.

When asked what is the single most important thing an employer could do to increase the employee’s trust in the employer’s commitment to protecting privacy, respondents wanted clear communication. It is understandable that 26 percent said the most important thing their employers could do is to explain in detail the purpose of seeing certain information on the device.

Additional questions show that 20 percent would like their employers to ask permission in writing. An interesting number is that 15 percent want a written request from their employers asking for their permission before accessing anything on their device that is not related to work content.

I would prefer that my personal information stays just that, personal. It seems that around 20 percent of the people surveyed are comfortable as long as they receive written requests asking for permission.

While it appears that an employer can see general information on an employee’s personal mobile device, items such as photos, personal emails, texts, Web browsing activities and voicemails are not accessible. There are still a lot of issues that need to be worked out when it comes to BYOD and how they fit into the corporate environment.

If you want to see the results of the actual survey from MobileIron, you can do so by clicking here.




Edited by Blaise McNamee







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