The effects of the BYOD policy on your data recovery system

Driven mainly by employees, the BYOD policy can have great positives as well as some damaging negatives to businesses throughout the UK. Data management and security has become a growing concern around the policy, with an increasing worry in the inability to successfully perform a sufficient data backup and recovery.

A survey of 250 individuals in the UK IT industry revealed that 72 per cent currently had remote access to their company’s data. With 70 per cent of them noting concerns over the possibility of data loss and over 50 per cent stating that they felt that the BYOD policy meant less control over company’s data system. A recent survey of 100 UK IT businesses, each with over 500 employees, found that half of the organisations had a BYOD policy in place with 9 out of 10 expecting to implement one in the next two years.

In today’s technological backdrop, consumers are integrating technology on a frequent basis into their everyday lives with this spilling over into the workplace. In addition, with the inconvenience of carrying multiple work and personal devices, a move towards converging the two devices is on the horizon. So what will this mean for your company’s data management and recovery systems?

In short, the BYOD policy will have a negative impact. With an increasing amount of company data being stored on employee’s personal devices, specialized data recovery systems can be inhibited from being as effective as possible. Not only does data become insecure, it can also be misplaced or completely lost in the event of a network failure.

Although many UK corporations are not for the BYOD policy, the inclusion of personal technology in the work place is a phenomenon that will only increase in frequency. Thus, the issue of data management is something that needs to be addressed, before the loss of company data to employee’s personal devices.

UK companies need to move towards a way in which the BYOD policy can be incorporated into the company’s technological landscape with minimal effects on data management and security. In a previous Business Matters article, Managing Director of Digital Pathways, Colin Tankard took a look at the BYOD policy and how companies could incorporate it with minimal effects on their data management system. For Tankard, one solution can be found in installing software onto employee’s personal devices, ensuring that when linked back onto the company network, the device is scanned for non-appropriate apps or settings and can only reconnect once these have been removed or reset. In addition, he suggests that clauses should be included into contracts that ensure that upon leaving the company employees delete any company data on their personal device as well as allowing random audits of personal devices for unwanted content that may be transferred onto the company’s network. Although, theoretically, this may be a solution to the issues raised by BYOD, it fails to take into account the realities of employee control and privacy. Issues of data management are also still not addressed while employee data security and privacy is impeded upon to a larger extent.

The ‘Choose Your Own Device’ is one growing way in which companies are attempting to move towards the BYOD policy within a progressive scheme. Although not completely incorporative, the CYOD policy is a progressive way in which much of the benefits of BYOD can be achieved without some of the negatives. Moreover, many UK industries have been pioneers of this policy with a CYOD policy being put into place in many leading IT companies throughout the UK. With CYOD, employees are allowed to choose their own devices while the company owns the device SIM/ contract. Although this does solve the some issues relating to ownership of data, there is still much lacking in the way of a secured data management system.

For the most part, the issue of data security and recovery still remains an issue with these chosen devices still containing company data that is either not reachable through the company server or not saved to the server. Moreover, CYOD still allows employees remote access to secured company data, enabling uncontrolled unauthorised access.

For many UK industries, the debate around BYOD and CYOD is a common occurrence with many issues yet to be resolved. As specialists in IT and data recovery, LSA Systems is excited to be apart of this debate, constantly looking for new thoughts, opinions and solutions to the issue of data management. Click here to calculate your company’s data recovery time.