4 ms·
Why would someone ever be putting personal apps on a work device? Setting aside the issues the company/organization may have with it, why would you personally
by tristor 4y ago
Why would someone ever be putting personal apps on a work device? Setting aside the issues the company/organization may have with it, why would you personally want to subject yourself to your company/organization not only having the legal right, but possibly a compliance duty, to monitor and inspect all of your personal communications?
There are a LOT of things that some people do in their personal time that might be considered a violation of company policy, and arguably a reason for termination, if found out by their company but are generally considered socially acceptable to do in your personal time because the company doesn't know about it and has no reasonable way or desire to find out. When you put personal apps and communications on work devices, you've now created a situation where the company may be required to know about those things and you are putting your job at risk for zero benefit.
It's frankly none of the company's business if you get utterly shithoused on the weekend and sleep with random strangers at the bar, but if the evidence (pictures/videos/social media posts) of this are now being stored on and transmitted by a company device, they may have a legal obligation or duty to inspect it to ensure that device isn't storing/transmitting confidential data they have compliance obligations for, and now they know. Now that they know, they may have an obligation to terminate you because your behavior reflects poorly on the company.
Maybe this is my US-centric worldview, because I know the EU is much less prudish, but I know that there are a lot of white collar workers in the US that smoke weed on the weekend with friends and engage in casual encounters, and yet both of these things would be considered to be morally suspect (and in the case of weed is still federally illegal, even though many states have locally decriminalized it) and are generally against company policies even when the official stance is a wink, nod, and a look away. By doing these things on a company device, you're putting it front and center and forcing the company to know about it. Your boss does not need to know about your weekend bong hits, or which clubs you go to in order to meet partners, and neither does company HR, so why are you forcing them to know?
I'm now older and much more strait-laced than I was in my youth, but I had already well-established my personal policy not to mix work and personal devices more than two decades ago. How is this a lesson people are having to re-learn?