Are personal phones and laptops treated differently at workplace? [closed]

Question

In most workplaces in America, are personal phones and laptops treated the same, when it comes to the issue of

• whether it is allowed to connect to workplace wifi using employee credentials?

• furthermore, whether it is allowed to bring to workplace, and personal laptops

If yes, what are the reason that they are treated differently? (I want to understand the concerns of the employers, and what an employee can do to allow themselves some computing freedom that ultimately benefits their work and their employer.)

Assume a workplace which values their security. (Apology for staying general, because I don't have the accurate and definite information of a specific employer, even though they probably have and I have asked . I want to know very much what you know about from your experinces or what you heard.)

Assume that a workplace provides desktop computer with internet access restrictions to almost all the websites that are helpful for work, except their computing provider Microsoft's websites, and Google Search and Gmail and Google Drive.

Assume that personal laptop has ebooks and study notes helpful to work.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If your company cares about IT security and has a decent policy about it, this policy will probably say that you may not use any personal electronic devices in the office. This means neither your personal phone nor your laptop should be connected to company wifi. Having your phone or laptop inside your backback is probably fine. Recharging them in the office would be border line and depend on the details of the policy.

If you company does not have a proper IT security policy it may be quite common for employees to connect the personal phones to company wifi. In that case it may be ok to also connect your personal laptop to company wifi provided you do it during your lunch break and not at your desktop but rather in the cafeteria. Going any further than that may be allowed in practice but it will never be allowed on paper.

Answer 2

I really don't know how useful the answers are going to be for you.

Different employers may treat mobile phones and laptops differently, but I see no reason why they should. Maybe phones are slightly less likely to contain viruses?

Different employers have different risk profiles. Some will outright ban personal devices from even being on the premises (example military), and some will have absolutely no restrictions at all.

At my workplace there is a "public" Wifi network I can connect my devices to, but it's seperate from the work network. Having personal devices interact with the work network is not allowed. This is obviously a great solution because I have access to very fast internet without suffering potential risks.

If you're allowed, bring your mobile phone, use mobile data, and tether it to your laptop, and use that for browsing whatever reference sites you need, if you find that the company internet filter is too restrictive. Of course, as with any "unusual" activity you do at work, you should ensure that it is ok with your manager.

Answer 3

Normal security for companies that allow personal equipment is to separate work from everything else. In the same way they would normally separate finance from marketing etc.

The specifics will change from company to company, but I'd just have a separate wifi that is again separated at the main firewall.

Exceptions are made where a personal machine may be treated as a work one for specialists and temporary consultants, but even these would usually have access limitations.