Are federal agency workers going rogue with personal devices?

Telework Exchange survey shows BYOD policy gaps for mobile devices

Federal agencies continue to struggle with the question of whether to allow employees to use their personal smartphones and tablets at work under so-called bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, according to a survey out this month from the organization Telework Exchange.

Out of the 314 federal employees who responded to the survey, 49% said they use their personal devices for work-related tasks, with 93% of these citing they use their own laptop, 64% saying they use their own smartphones and 19% using a personal tablet for work purposes. But while the federal government has made great stride over the years in settling policy and security-requirement issues related to personal laptops used for telework purposes, the same cannot be said for how federal agencies address the newer smartphones and tablets, the Telework Exchange points out. Although 55% of the federal employees who use smartphones or tablets for work bring their own, just 11% of them say their agency has an official BYOD policy at all.

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Security improvements for laptops in telework began to happen in earnest after a contractor at the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2006 had a laptop stolen from his home that had held sensitive unencrypted data concerning millions of U.S. veterans, a security incident that generated front-page headlines and a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

Auten adds that she hopes it won't take a huge data-breach incident like the one related to the VA laptop to speed adoption of policies and technology appropriate for BYOD is federal agencies.

Ellen Messmer is senior editor at Network World, an IDG publication and website, where she covers news and technology trends related to information security. Twitter: @MessmerE. Email: emessmer@nww.com.

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