BYOD

Subscribe to BYOD

OPC BYOD GuidelinesI’ve written several posts about BYOD in the past, and continue to believe that for many workplaces, BYOD will be difficult if not impossible to resist. However, it won’t be news to anyone that BYOD raises a full array of privacy and security issues related to the potential blurring and blending of employee personal information and business/customer information on devices.

Recently, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, along with the Alberta and British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioners, have published guidelines to assist organizations considering or implementing BYOD policies.

While the publication does not introduce anything overly novel, it does provide a good roadmap in one document, a roadmap with quite a bit of weight if you are trying to prove your organization did its due diligence around implementing a prudent BYOD program.Continue Reading Privacy Commissioner’s BYOD Guidelines

Last week, I conducted a workshop on implementing a successful “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) program at the Canadian Institute’s Privacy Law & Compliance Conference.  I met a wonderful group of privacy experts who had plenty to contribute to the discussion.

We talked about the benefits, risks and costs of permitting employees to use their personal device to perform work-related tasks, which typically includes accessing the company’s network.  Over half the group was in the public sector and regularly handled very sensitive, confidential personal information.

The private sector attendees in the group had an equally strong concern about protecting highly sensitive and confidential business information.  At the end of the day, most organizations, regardless of how open they may or may not be, require a certain level of security around their data, intellectual property and personal information.

So how to implement a successful BYOD program?

Continue Reading Implementing a Successful BYOD Program

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/aforgrave/6168689222/">aforgrave</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>

In this fourth piece on Bringing Your Own Device to work, I build upon my past posts that set out the benefits, costs and risks of BYOD.

So you’ve now decided to jump in (or some other reckless decision maker in your organization has), and you now have to develop your BYOD program.  Here are…

Employees often take work-related data with them when they resign or are terminated from employment.  In many cases, it is an inadvertent act that has happened over time by using their own device or email account to work after hours.

Emily Chung, technology writer from CBC News interviewed me and wrote the following piece, exploring the issue:…

As employees increasingly demand to use their preferred electronic device in the workplace, employers are working through whether the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) concept is a good idea, or an employee perk to ban for security and cost reasons. In my next few blog posts, I plan to explore the issue and…

Paramedics and other emergency workers face unique communication issues when on duty.  Speed, constant availability and focus are paramount.  So how does one check their smart phone email, update their Facebook status or tweet out an update?  Turns out they don’t.  At least not in some of the organizations that are starting to ban…