BYOD is not Bring Your "Only" Device

Am I against BYOD? No, not even a little bit. In fact I’m completely for everything *YOD. The adoption of technology at a consumer-market pace is both challenging and exciting, making the work we do on a daily basis easier, faster and more enjoyable compared to how things used to be. That said, it’s easy to be drawn into the hype of the anywhere, anytime, any device mantra without considering the potential pitfalls that aren’t necessarily widely communicated, especially from a non-IT perspective.

I’ve had numerous conversations with people over the last few years and a regular concern I hear when discussing BYOD is how people don’t want to use their personal mobile devices for work purposes. As someone who works in the industry I have first-hand experience of how much access and control a business can have over a device and I don’t typically attempt to quell this concern; it’s valid.

To highlight just a small example of the data collected by some MDM solutions, using an MDM-enrolled device that is equally shared between personal and corporate use can:

• Give an employer your location at any time
• Provide call and SMS logs
• Allow an employer to see the web domains that have been visited in the past
• Provide a current & up to date list of installed applications on the device
• Grant access to stored information on the device
• This information has its place and can be quite valuable to an employer managing corporate devices, but can equally be considered as overstepping the line in respecting privacy for an employee using a personal device. Most MDM solutions offer to differentiate between personal and corporate devices and won’t collect certain data, but this functionality can be easily overridden or not enabled to begin with if a company doesn’t choose to do so.

There are of course options around what devices to bring to a corporate environment. What I tend to explain is Bring Your Own Device doesn’t mean Bring Your Only Device. BYOD in most cases is providing the employee with the ability to use a device in the form-factor and running the operating system of their choosing rather than being provided with a standard device by their company.

I can’t speak for everyone naturally, but I know I’m not the only one who can say I have amassed a number of devices over the years, several of which aren’t very old (rather, simply replaced due to upgrades or in my specific case; because I review a lot of devices). If you don’t have any devices sitting around, you can generally pick up a half-decent smartphone from around £70+.

Of course that does bring up another question, like who should be responsible for providing and paying for a SIM card (and respective usage) that would need to be set up as opposed to the personal SIM they’d have otherwise used in a personal device?

Depending on the company policy (which employees should absolutely read) it may be the case that in lieu of a corporate device, an employer may provide a SIM to be used for work purposes or offer to cover the cost of using an additional personal SIM instead.

For the former there’s no work involved for the employee, pop in the provided SIM and they’re ready to go. For the latter however I’d be inclined to pick up a PAYG (prepaid) SIM card offering the best rates and expense the charges to the employer once a month. In either of these cases though, all that’s required is a spare device.

Unfortunately it may be the case that the employer offers neither a SIM nor remuneration for outgoings incurred on a 2nd personal SIM dedicated to corporate use.

If that is the case, the employee has a tough question to answer; how much is my privacy worth? They’ll have to weigh up the cost of running a 2nd device vs keeping their personal information private from corporate eyes.

Do you have a story to share? How do you manage the fine line between device control and privacy? Let me know in the comments or using #BYOnlyD on Twitter or Google+.