Employer expecting employee to use personal phone for work?

[Lazy Fare]

The most worrying aspect is the blurring of the boundary between work and recreational time (and sleep time). This fucks up mental health in the most insidious and damaging way. Evil.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Not if it's company owned information such a business strategy or other confidential information especially any information covered by the data protection act.

And in the worse case scenario you could be prosecuted for refusing to hand the information over - especially under s55 of the DPA for personal data. That would be a rare step though, as most people wouldn't dig their heels in to that extent.

It's an interesting question though whether an employer could insist on inspecting the employee's phone or computer, or whether they could only ask for written assurance that the information has been handed over and deleted from the device. I expect the right of privacy under the HRA would be factor in how far the employer could go down that route.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

The most worrying aspect is the blurring of the boundary between work and recreational time (and sleep time). This fucks up mental health in the most insidious and damaging way. Evil.

I completely agree - you need to maintain that line for sake of your health and sanity. There's been some interesting developments in Europe about contacting employees out of hours, with some companies switching off their blackberry mail servers at a set time each day so employees can't deal with work in the evenings, and various other restrictions like auto-deletion of e-mails where a person is on leave.

 

[discobastard]

The most worrying aspect is the blurring of the boundary between work and recreational time (and sleep time). This fucks up mental health in the most insidious and damaging way. Evil.

I agree with the worry, but this is probably a bit extreme. *You* are still in control of when you do and do not engage with emails and calls outside of working hours.

I never look at my Blackberry over the weekend unless I've undertaken to do some work during that period. And that is usually my decision to work on one of my own projects. And it's in my contract that project work can be unpredictable and therefore work outside of standard office hours will be required. But it's never been unmanageably bad.

 

[equationgirl]

I'm working considerably more than my contracted hours as it is at the.moment, no way am I working at weekends as well.

 

[Me76]

At the place I'm at now, we supply phones for almost all people but if someone wants to use their own phone that's fine too, it basically saves us £30 a month so we aren't going to complain.

We have recently brought in software that will enable us to track phones, disable and delete data remotely etc, as we deal with sensitive information so need to have that ability.

If someone is using their own phone by choice and doesn't allow us to use that software, they are then have to use a work phone.

Tbh, we can't ever stop them accessing their work emails from their personal phone anyway, even if they have a work phone. So it's all slightly fucked anyway.

 

[abe11825]

The last company I worked for, decided to use Groupon as advertisement for certain services and get people in the store. As we were a small company (including the two owners, there were 10 people working there) everyone had a smart device.

So the day came when the owners wanted the staff to download the Groupon Merchant app on their personal phone. Everyone but me downloaded it. I said there's no way I'm using my personal mobile for his benefit. If he wanted me to scan people's coupon, he'd need to provide a scanner. That answer didn't fly and he got really upset, really quickly.

Like, how can I refuse him and use my personal device for his decision? I stuck to my answers until he told me I'd have to find one of the other employee's mobiles in order to adequately do my job. Which I thought was one of the most craziest things I've heard - interrupt one of the workers to say "can I borrow your phone? I need to scan a Groupon" and then continue on in my day. Wasteful thinking, IMO.

I don't agree with employers making employees use their personal devices for business gain what so ever. If my employer wants to foot my bill (any part of it - however you break it down), then I'd think about it. But honestly, I wouldn't do it. I'd rather be let go.

 

[equationgirl]

The last company I worked for, decided to use Groupon as advertisement for certain services and get people in the store. As we were a small company (including the two owners, there were 10 people working there) everyone had a smart device.

So the day came when the owners wanted the staff to download the Groupon Merchant app on their personal phone. Everyone but me downloaded it. I said there's no way I'm using my personal mobile for his benefit. If he wanted me to scan people's coupon, he'd need to provide a scanner. That answer didn't fly and he got really upset, really quickly.

Like, how can I refuse him and use my personal device for his decision? I stuck to my answers until he told me I'd have to find one of the other employee's mobiles in order to adequately do my job. Which I thought was one of the most craziest things I've heard - interrupt one of the workers to say "can I borrow your phone? I need to scan a Groupon" and then continue on in my day. Wasteful thinking, IMO.

I don't agree with employers making employees use their personal devices for business gain what so ever. If my employer wants to foot my bill (any part of it - however you break it down), then I'd think about it. But honestly, I wouldn't do it. I'd rather be let go.

In many ways, a bring your own device policy could be a short term fix leading to long term problems.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

At the place I'm at now, we supply phones for almost all people but if someone wants to use their own phone that's fine too, it basically saves us £30 a month so we aren't going to complain.

We have recently brought in software that will enable us to track phones, disable and delete data remotely etc, as we deal with sensitive information so need to have that ability.

If someone is using their own phone by choice and doesn't allow us to use that software, they are then have to use a work phone.

Tbh, we can't ever stop them accessing their work emails from their personal phone anyway, even if they have a work phone. So it's all slightly fucked anyway.

I've got a standard crappy work blackberry which they can nuke remotely if need be. I don't think it's possible to selectively erase data though, although it's a pretty dumb smartphone given how locked down it is.

The latest blackberry operating system allows you to have work and personal data on the same device, but firewalled off from each other somehow. There's absolutely no way I would countenance letting my personal stuff anywhere near work even if they supplied a flashy new phone. I don't trust the buggers.

I'm surprised that people can access their work e-mails on a non-work phone at your place though. That sounds like a security breach waiting to happen...

 

[cesare]

Remote desktop probably.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Remote desktop probably.

Ah yeah, didn't think of that. It sounds dodgy from a security point of view though, but I suppose there must be ways of protecting the mail server and the wider network beyond that from whatever crap is in the employee's computer or phone.

 

[discobastard]

The last company I worked for, decided to use Groupon as advertisement for certain services and get people in the store. As we were a small company (including the two owners, there were 10 people working there) everyone had a smart device.

So the day came when the owners wanted the staff to download the Groupon Merchant app on their personal phone. Everyone but me downloaded it. I said there's no way I'm using my personal mobile for his benefit. If he wanted me to scan people's coupon, he'd need to provide a scanner. That answer didn't fly and he got really upset, really quickly.

Like, how can I refuse him and use my personal device for his decision? I stuck to my answers until he told me I'd have to find one of the other employee's mobiles in order to adequately do my job. Which I thought was one of the most craziest things I've heard - interrupt one of the workers to say "can I borrow your phone? I need to scan a Groupon" and then continue on in my day. Wasteful thinking, IMO.

I don't agree with employers making employees use their personal devices for business gain what so ever. If my employer wants to foot my bill (any part of it - however you break it down), then I'd think about it. But honestly, I wouldn't do it. I'd rather be let go.

What you haven't said here is why specifically you didn't want to download the Groupon app. What harm/difficulty might it have caused you (if indeed that is the reason) - or is it merely a principle thing. I'm not being critical, just interested.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

Ah yeah, didn't think of that. It sounds dodgy from a security point of view though, but I suppose there must be ways of protecting the mail server and the wider network beyond that from whatever crap is in the employee's computer or phone.

It's pretty common, even in companies that pay more attention than most to security. There's normally an antivirus at the exchange level and at the local domain machine level as well. A compromise on a BYOD that just has email and lync is not insignificant, especially from a social engineering point of view, but it's not letting you upload viruses onto alien motherships either (Independence day, great film).

These days you can do selective wipes of some sections of the modern OS's (Android, Windows, probably iOS). For example if i were to sign my personal mobile up to my work's email client then i'd grant our admins permission to wipe my email and calendar but i don't believe they could touch my photos or music, for example.

As for the orriginal question: Work should provide you with hardware to do your job, they might allow you to substitute your own device instead but that's an option you choose to take up or not. That's my opinion and it breaks down in some cases but generally i think it's a good rule of thumb.

 

[abe11825]

What you haven't said here is why specifically you didn't want to download the Groupon app. What harm/difficulty might it have caused you (if indeed that is the reason) - or is it merely a principle thing. I'm not being critical, just interested.

I didn't want the Groupon Merchant app (basically the business end of the regular app) on my personal mobile. He wasn't paying my bill, nor would he offer to pay the bill. I don't want to share my phone with my boss. If I don't even use my phone at work for personal use, I am not using it for business. Unless he wants to buy his employees a business phone.. just to use the scanning feature. The one time I used my phone as a streaming device there (using wifi), my data skyrocketed.. that was the first and last time I used my phone for music. So I'm pretty mindful with what I download and use.

 

[sim667]

We all use our personal phones for work, but then our boss is a. A friend, b. Proper sound (I've never paid for a drink when we've all gone out, he gets them in).

Most of the time we just use Skype for calling amongst ourselves but occasionally we'll have to text each other etc.