The BYOD Challenge

Having a policy in place to manage mobile devices used by employees for work purposes is necessary in this current day.

Having a good BYOD in policy in place is critical for most companies in the current day, especially in the financial services industry. Employees using mobile devices that are connected to a corporate network, and that are privy to valuable and sensitive data, need to know exactly what protocols they should follow in using that device.

According to Nolan Goldberg, an intellectual property and technology counsel with Proskauer LLP, knowing the fundamental principles of information governance is key so that any BYOD policy can grow to handle whatever comes tomorrow in this world of rapidly changing technology. Firstly, he says it is important to note the difference between an organization giving out mobile devices for work use, as opposed to allowing employees to use their personal devices for work and store corporate data. Most companies have a mobile device management policy in place for the former, so it's that latter that requires a well-implemented BYOD policy.

If an employee is allowed to use his personal device to gain access to a corporate network for work purposes, he needs to know the expectations of privacy and ownership of data that comes with that privilege, notes Goldberg. For example, if that employee leaves the company and corporate data needs to be removed, will the entire phone need to be wiped, thus causing the employee to lose personal data as well? These are scenarios that need to be addressed in a BYOD policy, Goldberg says.

"It needs to be clear who owns what," he adds. "The employee has an obligation to know what he can and can’t do."

Goldberg says the biggest mistake companies make is allowing employees to use personal devices for work use ad hoc without having a policy in place. "I don't think as of right now there's enough of a history to say that one kind of policy is better than another," he says. "The biggest thing is to have one in place."

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Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio