When Ethics Catch Up With Technology

Is your tech a right or a privilege?  

Some businesses that have held a policy allowing employees to bring your own devices to work are starting to trend in directions designed to protect their businesses and productivity. 

An emerging trend is that companies are imposing a rule on employees that BYOD (bring your own devices) that these devices must submit these devices for blocking and tracking the same as company devices if they are to be used on company time and premises.  Businesses are concerned about productivity, protection against viruses and mal-ware and maintaining control of sensitive company data.  Perhaps the lost production is driving this trend more than ethics;  

"Employees spend an average of 1.86 hours per eight-hour workday on something other than their jobs, not including lunch and scheduled breaks, the survey found. Based on those averages, employee time-wasting costs U.S. employers an estimated $544 billion in lost productivity each year.  More than half (52%) of the 2,706 people surveyed admitted that their biggest distraction during work hours is surfing the Internet for personal use. (Price Tag for Lost Productivity: $544 Billion, Leslie Taylor, INC Magazine)

According to "a survey by Gartner Inc. of global CIOs showed that 38 percent of responding companies expect to stop providing mobile devices to employees by 2016. Like it or not, employees -- presumably even those who travel a lot -- won't get company cellphones.   By the way, you get to bring in your devices so IT can install not only anti-virus software but mobile device management tools that will track your browser activity and scan your stored files for anything that doesn't fit the company culture.  It's not even clear from Gartner's research whether the CIOs plan to subsidize employee use of their own devices for business purposes."  (BYOD is Taking a Dangerous Left Turn by James M. Connolly)

Could government agencies, and schools be next?  Certainly government agencies have tightened the screws on employees in light of recent leaks. Schools are badly behind the productivity curve in the battle to regulate BYOD .  Most school staff will testify to growing issues with discipline regarding electronics including bullying, threats, cheating, and disruption of the learning environment. Texting, tweeting and video posting is the high tech note passing. Students consider their devices a right and their ability to use it whenever they please their free speech. Take for example the battle over this Stockton, CA school's effort to restrict students use of social media with a contract.  It is unlikely the contract alone will work, as most schools have a internet user agreement that limits most social media, pornography and video and these contracts and firewalls are regularly breached by tech-savy students. Using the business premise of BYOD at school would mean students devices be fitted with anti-virus software, mobile device management tools that will track your browser activity and block inappropriate sites, even texting during school hours.

The ethical questions of whether it is right to be spending time using personal devices to post videos, and chat in Facebook at school or work take a backseat to safety and the bottom line. Unfettered technology may yet be brought to serve and not distract from productivity.