Where I work allows you to access work email from your own device, but to do so you have to install remote wipe software so that they can do a factory reset on the device should it be lost or stolen - seems fair enough as they don't want company information falling into the wrong hands.

A couple of weeks ago, someone lost their phone so the IT department did what they needed to do to clear it, but cocked it up and ended up wiping 2000 devices before realising the error and stopping it.

There were a lot of people who lost personal stuff like photos, videos, etc and were understandably not happy. The response from the company - "you should have a backup".

 

I have not heard of BYOD prior to reading this thread - in my organisation it would not work. There is a raft of things that I give my consent to by pressing 'ctrl alt & delete' to log into my organisations computer systems. One of those statements is that 'the system and its software is to be used for exclusively lawful business purposes' another is that 'users shall have no expection of privacy'. Basically everything I do is logged, audited and I must be able to give an account for any transaction I carry out on that system.

Work require me to carry a mobile telephone which I am permitted to use as my personal mobile, however when the bill comes in, it comes directly to me, I am required to highlight any personal calls, make payment for them if over £10 and pay a small contribution to the rental charge. Basically this gives me a mobile telephone for around £5 a month where the ppm call costs are minimal. I am on call to my organisation, which can be a bit of a bind, however I have recently persuaded them to make provision to enable access to the computer infrastructure from my home. Despite being able to do everything I can do from my office from my home, I can not work from home, as the organisation has yet to formulate and agree its home working policy!!

I wouldn't be in support of the BYOD initiative, although unified communications is becoming increasingly platform agnositic which is probably a catalyst for this change. Without the organisation having admin rights to the device, there is no method of preventing users from installing thier own software or products which may not integrate well with the company applications or device settings. To save on the cost of a handset, it hardly seems worth incurring the potential risks.

 

Exactly the reason I won't be allowing them admin on my phone.

I spoke to IT today, they can't or won't alter the server settings and suggested I upgrade my work mobile to something more email friendly.

I'll be having this chat tomorrow to my tecnophobe boss lol.

 

Whoops!

Cool, if your IT Dept are advising you to upgrade to a nice new phone at the company's expense, then it'd be rude not to

 

Gotta love techophobe bosses!

"Just stick your out of office on for the days youre not in"

:-/