After our last post on privacy, we had a reader reach out to us and kickstarted a conversation on device privacy, and how that is increasingly important in the workplace.
Bring your own device policies are extremely common – 74% of organizations currently have such a policy in place, or are planning to implement one. Our personal lives are increasingly intersecting with our professional lives, at least on our devices. As more people start blending personal and professional usage on devices in the workplace, the potential for privacy violations start increasing. Here are some scenarios:
Watch those notifications!
Notifications on your cell phone are useful, but they can inadvertently expose a lot of information. A major culprit could be messaging apps or text messages. If you do not actively choose to hide the details of the messages in notifications, it could show on your lock screen or pop up when unwanted. A good way to avoid this is to use do-not-disturb mode on your phone to silence these notifications and make sure they do not show up.
This is especially tricky when you have to be separated from your phone. For example, you might need to charge your phone and the only outlet is across the room. Leaving your phone there could expose a bunch of unwanted notifications. Make sure you turn on do not disturb mode. (Or even better, get a ChargeSpot so you can conveniently charge right next to you!)
The one-sided phone call
We all know what the one-sided phone call sounds like – the conversation that you can’t help overhearing when someone is on the phone, except you only get half of it. This is especially prevalent in open floor plans. Some teams have embraced this for transparency in work-related calls. However, we all have personal calls to attend to every now and then, and often times, the only escape for some privacy is to leave your workstation in search of a private place. That might not always work for urgent situations.
Solutions for this problem include private call booths, or even sound dampening semi-private call stations. This helps to reduce audio leakage and maintain some level of call privacy.
Data privacy
Beyond what we discussed about visual and acoustic privacy, one unique factor to device privacy is data privacy. Data privacy includes the information that your device transmits, from your apps to your browsing data etc. Data privacy issues can occur when this data gets exposed, possibly through data networks such as corporate internet, or through corporate applications or systems installed onto the device.
Beyond actual data that is intentionally transmitted, your devices might generate a trail of data that you don’t expect to be there. For example, scanning for WiFi networks, broadcasting Bluetooth signals etc. provides a data trail that can be followed.
Data privacy can be secured by using secured and/or private data networks. Additionally, it is important to have privacy policies in place to provide guidelines regarding the blurring of work and personal data on devices.
