Workers do not trust employers with personal data

Workers using their own mobile devices for work remain fearful of their employer accessing their personal information.

A new Aruba Networks report features a study of over 3,000 employees around the world and reveals that almost half of European (45 percent), 40 percent of Middle Eastern and 66 percent of American respondents fear the loss of personal data.

A further 34 percent of Europeans, 35 percent of Middle Easterners and more than half of Americans (51 percent) claim that their IT department takes no steps to ensure the security of corporate files and applications on their personal devices.

These concerns are leading many employees to keep their personal devices away from the IT department, which is jeopardizing company data. Around one in six European workers (15 percent) and Middle Eastern and American employees (17 percent) have not told their employers that they use a personal device for work.

Even more concerning for business is that 13 percent in Europe, 26 percent in the Middle East and 11 percent in the USA would not report that their personal device had been compromised, even if it leaked company data. A further 40 percent of European workers, 41 percent of Middle Eastern workers and 36 percent of US employees would not report leaked data immediately.

This reticence is driven by negative perceptions of corporate IT departments, particularly what the IT team might do with the employee’s personal device and data. Twenty-five percent in Europe, 31 percent in the Middle East and 45 percent in the USA worry about IT department access to their personal data, while 18 percent in Europe and 26 percent in the Middle East fear their IT department would interfere with their private data if they handed over their device.

When asked how they would feel if their personal data was accessed by their IT department, around half of all users across Europe and the Middle East described their reaction as “angry’, and 41 percent in Europe, 47 percent in the Middle East and 46 percent in the US would feel “violated’ by this news.

There is a clear disparity between what employees want and what IT departments need. Creating a division between personal data and work data would go a long way to solving these problems and putting employees’ minds to rest.

To manage the use of personal mobile devices, the Aruba WorkSpace mobile application provisions a separate, encrypted area on the devices for work applications and content. This gives IT full control over the corporate information in the encrypted space, but no visibility into personal areas of the device, thereby protecting employee privacy.

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