A third of employees describe the security culture of their workplace as moderate or lax.
The survey of 755 British workers by Absolute Software found that 63 per cent of employees had a formal procedure in place to follow when a device is lost, and 30 per cent said that there are no personal penalties for losing the phone.
Stephen Midgley, vice president of global marketing at Absolute Software, said: “The desire for employees to work remotely and on the go has made valuable and confidential business data vulnerable.
“A business can be compromised financially and competitively through data breaches, and it’s vital that CIOs and IT departments develop a strategy to mitigate against mobile device theft and data loss.”
The survey also found that a quarter (23 per cent) of employees said that data security is not their responsibility, with the same amount saying that the device is owned by the business. Yet when asked about employer penalties for losing individual data, 69 per cent of those surveyed said businesses should be fined and face legal sanctions.
Privacy consultant Martin Hoskins argued that in the case of data losses, the chief executive should be made personally accountable “because otherwise it is just money and it takes money away from the service users”.
He said: “None of us want bad behaviour, but how do we incentivise good behaviour and punish or stop bad behaviour? If it is clear that money has not altered behaviour or achieved behavioural change then they have failed and we should think of something else. How do we achieve good standards and what are they?”
