TORONTO – Telus has teamed up with Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner Dr. Ann Cavoukian on a new white paper that explores the challenges associated with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) initiatives.
More than 27 million Canadians use mobile computing devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablets and that number continues to grow. Canadian enterprises outpace their global counterparts in BYOD, though fewer than half (33%) of Canadian organizations have mobile device management policies and practices in place to mitigate the many security and privacy risks associated with BYOD. Further, more than half (58%) of Canadian organizations lose sensitive corporate data each year through devices used by employees.
The white paper, Bring Your Own Device: Is Your Organization Ready?, examines information management risks and offers practical implementation guidance to mitigate them. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, the paper sets out a comprehensive five-step process:
Step 1: Requirement Documentation – Understand the usage patterns of all mobile workers.
Step 2: Technology Selection – Align the right technologies to assure compliance across the infrastructure.
Step 3: Policy Development – Establish obligations, requirements and criteria in a formal policy.
Step 4: Security – Address data security risks with effective administrative controls.
Step 5: Support – Ensure support for end-users with appropriate capabilities and processes.
"Once an organization makes the decision to adopt a BYOD policy, it is paramount to follow the principles of Privacy by Design by embedding privacy and security directly into the operational process," said Commissioner Cavoukian, in the news release. "By applying these systematic methods and assuring end-to-end safeguards, organizations will diminish the costly risk of data loss and in turn, witness significant long-term gains."
"In collaborating with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to create this white paper, Telus hopes to provide Canadian organizations with information and practical approaches that will be helpful in addressing the need for protecting proprietary data whilst at the same time protecting every Canadian employee's right to privacy," added Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle.
