While more than 84 per cent of employees rate privacy as a top three concern, there is a clear lack of trust in the ability of their employer to manage their mobile security and privacy.
According to a survey of over 5,000 employees from 19 countries worldwide by AdaptiveMobile, just 30 per cent of respondents preferred their employer to manage their corporate mobility service, but trust levels in their mobile operator were higher with 42 percent of people happier if their device at work was managed by their operator.
Ciaran Bradley, chief product officer at AdaptiveMobile, said: “Trust is the magic word when it comes to empowering employees to use their own devices in the workplace. The mobile device is such an inherently personal part of our lives that people want to know that their details are safe.
“Where the IT department may be stigmatised in the eyes of employees, they see the mobile operator as the trusted service provider. The opportunity for businesses, therefore, is to benefit from the reflected trust by deploying a managed mobile security solution and so instill the confidence in the service that their employees demand.”
Among employees who do not use their own devices for work purposes, 44 per cent preferred to keep their work and personal life separate, while 24 per cent had a general mistrust of their employer having any kind of control over their devices.
CISO Amar Singh told IT Security Guru that he expected the negative numbers to be higher, but often it was down to people not being aware of when they are being monitored.
He said: “I have seen non-IT people hold two phones, so it is important to make users clear on what the policies are. I would say that it is 60/40 in favour of those who prefer to keep them separate. This is part of the problem – that aspects of the policy are not clear.”
Senior security analyst Rik Turner told IT Security Guru that he felt that the 44 per cent figure depends on a number of factors, including where the respondents are based. “The Americans seem to be less concerned about data privacy than Europeans, but also younger people are more likely to share things on social media than we do,” he said.
Richard Absalom, senior analyst, enterprise mobility at Ovum, said: “It’s clear that BYOD is not a newly discussed phenomenon, but our research over the last three years indicates that as a behavioural trend it is actually increasing and having an impact in every organisation. Businesses everywhere need to find ways of balancing corporate security demands with employees’ privacy concerns when using personal devices for work.”
