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The management of mobile devices and the relative regulations

Jul 08 2015

The use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace, especially where the BYOD applies, finds many SMEs unaware of implications and consequences in terms of IT security and privacy laws.

 

The Internet, as it was known in the last two decades, has undergone a deep transformation thanks to the exponential spread of instruments such as the cloud, but also with the progressive miniaturization of powerful devices, smart phones, which represent today important access points to the Net.

The corporate world is, willy-nilly, characterized by the need to spread information to those who need it and to do it in a timely manner. At the same time, it is necessary to regulate the use of the device by the resources who directly or indirectly, officially or unofficially, represent the company or institution he/she works for.

An increasing number of companies is launching projects of Mobile Enterprise Management. The sensitivity to this issue is steadily growing, even though sometimes its largeness is neglected, facing the problem in a sectorial and not holistic way.

Even if the management of the "mobile device" has made its way into large corporations, the small and medium enterprises, the beating heart of the Italian economy, continue to ignore its implications and consequences.
A strong incentive that promoted the "mobile" phenomenon has been the transformation of the labor market influenced by the advent of telecommuting and the so-called smart working.

Today, labor mobility is not only a necessity but also, above all, a fact. The need for a physical space, working hours and the working tools must be reviewed. The legal aspects of this phenomenon range from the transversality of the different types of employment contracts to the need of "internal regulations" for entities which intend to regulate the issue, whether they are companies or public administrations.
As a matter of fact, in reference to the "internal regulations" profile, it is indispensable to provide for a procedure that regulates the issue and creates the legal conditions to manage the conduct of the personnel, in relation to the use of corporate devices as well as to the use of personal devices in the workplace (the so-called BYOD).

If we refer to personal devices, the case of the BYOD, the implications and the monitoring difficulties (in its legitimacy sense of course), are presented in different ways ranging from the performance of the company's activities on mobile devices to securing a support which, even if it does not belong to the company, elaborates documents and files of corporate interest.

However, aside from the technological solutions of this phenomenon, fully explored for example in the document of the Oracle Community for Security entitled "Mobile Enterprise", important aspects of organizational-legal nature must be taken into account. It is sufficient to think of the widespread possibility that the control is extended beyond the workers subject to the employer's supervision; but also suppliers, agents, intermediaries of any kind.

To exercise control over the use of mobile devices by the abovementioned subjects, that is those who are distant from the area of control of the employer/entrepreneur, different means can be used whose conditioning capacity is slightly minor:

  • the agreement that regulates mutual relations,
  • the ethical code of Legislative Decree no. 231 of 2001.

Naturally, we must not underestimate the crossover of mobile devices with the social media, for which a joint management of the problems is required. Finally, in order to evaluate the profiles listed (and others not mentioned here), we must start with an analysis of the impact that weighs the implications, in relation to the type of subject to which it applies (e.g. whether private or public) to the industry, to the internal structure of the company, to the strength of the brand and the adopted work methods.

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