Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) Programs – New Challenges And Opportunities For Organizations

As the line between work and home becomes increasingly blurred, the federal, British Columbia and Alberta privacy commissioners have issued joint guidelines to help organizations reduce the risks of privacy breaches with respect to employers' data accessed from employee-owned devices (EODs), while also securing employees' privacy rights regarding any personal information stored on EODs.

The guidelines, issued on August 13, 2015, apply to all types of EODs – that is, all desktops and mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops – used to access corporate data, emails, communications, applications and other processes and information, and intend to address issues pertaining to: (i) risk assessment; (ii) acceptable uses of EODs; (iii) corporate monitoring and app management; (iv) the sharing of EODs; (iv) connection to corporate servers; (v) responsibility for security features; (vi) software updates; and (vii) voice or data plans.