Company won't allow personal BB use - why?

I'm just wondering if anyone can shed some light on this.

I recently bought a new Curve. I figured I'd give my old Curve to my wife (she's using a 8700c.) But when she asked her company if they'd be able to activate it for her their response was "no." They do not allow employees to use their own devices. Even though the employees are responsible for paying for the BB's (just the equipment) they must purchase them through the company. Keep in mind the company uses AT&T and my old BB is AT&T.

For what it's worth, her company is a major finance company.

Now what would be the reasoning behind this? If I wiped the device what would make it different that one she bought from them? Is this a security issue or them wanting to fill their purchase requirement to AT&T?

They more than likely are covering their own behinds. With the proliferation of so many "inappropriate" photos and videos on the web today ,as well as "restricted" info that gets "leaked", they are probably just not willing to take the chance on a device that has not been in their possession from the beginning. It opens them up to any number of unknowns (corporate espionage, child porn, etc...). They are just scared of having to shell out money for an internal investigation, legal defense, or fine. Your device is just as secure as one of theirs. And I am sure there is nothing inappropriate on it. But corporate lawyers will not allow anything that is a possible unknown. Sucks for us on the consumer end because it inevitably drives up costs for the consumer.:(

It's a good point but I still say if she gives it to them and they do a "wipe" on it isn't it just like it's straight out of the box?

And on the other end of the equation is; If the company has already purchased or contracted to purchase X amount of equipment from AT&T, that is an outlay of capital they are going to want to recoup or at least defray.

Allowing employees to "bring their own" would seriously impact that.
Right now they have to purchase through the company. If they could use their own equipment which in most cases they could get cheaper (like free last week), the company would have a shelf full of paid for, and unused equipment.

That's what I figured the reason was - financial.

The other possible reason could be is that the Curve has a built in camera. Most companies do not want their employees to have Blackberries with a camera. Businesses are more into cameraless Blackberries such as 87XX and 88XX models.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Most times its due to the camera..

It could be due to the camera but they were not device specific. No personal devices of any model type. This is why I think it's more of a security thing - in their minds.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

I have a 7130e (no camera) and my department won't let me use my BB with my Outlook account at work. Our IT guy lost me in about 2 sec's but I think it was because of multiple calendars - I have 3 at work and except for me, nobody cares that I had a dentist appt. last Monday.

It isn't that much of a mystery, most IT departments have a security policy in place and in writing and generally written in STONE. The reason for requiring the phone to be purchased through the company is as someone already said, to ensure compatibility and control and to avoid potential support problems.

I work at a technical college here in Greenville, SC and we do have a BB Enterprise server. They too require that you purchase the BB through the college in order to activate it on their server. Generally they are purchased by the employees department and not by the individual. I and pretty sure I have a better chance of getting the Lazy Boy Recliner office chair with heat and massage I requested than of getting a BB on the department's dime :)

I don't think I would want a BB with a restrictive IT policy pushed down to my phone that would limit what I could do with it. It is one thing if the company was paying for it but entirely different if I am paying the bills. To me the IT policy limits aren't worth the slight convenience of being directly connected to the campus network.

Here's my opinion on it, I'm a BES admin..

first off, there's a license fee involved. Each BB that is added costs money.. it's not as easy as putting in some info, and bada bing, bada boom connected..

Each license costs $99 dollars.. This is so that 1 Blackberry can connect to a BES. So why should the company pay that license fee to put a personal BB on it's BES? It shouldn't, and we(I) wouldn't force the user's to pay that, so my company reserves the spots for company purchased devices ONLY.

Secondly if it's YOUR device and you put COMPANY content on it.. what happens at that point if you leave the company? Can we wipe it? If we wipe it and you lose your contacts, it becomes a liability.

Thirdly, if you put a personal BB on a BES, any and ALL information on that device can be seen by the BES admins.. another liability.. If it's company purchased, we have a right to see what is happening on that phone, if it's personal, that right goes out the window.. Invasion of privacy?

Fourthly, we use IT policies that restrict what you can do.. If it's YOUR device and we restrict it, how fair is that? Do you want your car manufacturer to restrict your air conditioner? or how fast your car can go?

So, imo as a BES admin, I wont EVER add a personal BB for those reasons I mentioned..

Fortunately, my college has allowed me to access BES on my personal BB. I share my email address with my students and have helped students with projects or other issues countless times where I wouldn't have if my business mail wasn't forwarded to my BB.

My employer figures that $99 a year isn't an outrageous sum if I'm willing to make myself more accessible to my students.

Not a slam at any other organization, just an insight into mine. I am aware that I'm very lucky to have this privilage.

Originally Posted by sniffs

Secondly if it's YOUR device and you put COMPANY content on it.. what happens at that point if you leave the company? Can we wipe it? If we wipe it and you lose your contacts, it becomes a liability.

That's the problem. They make the employees buy the devices themselves so they own them.

wait.. why would a company make the employee's buy the device? if the company needs to be intouch with you 24/7, it should be the company's responsibility to purchase it..

Sniffs, I have a friend that has a personal BB and wants to use it to receive company email. The company will put her on the BES for $100, which she is happy to pay. Can she also access her personal email on BES or does she also need BIS with a data plan?

I would just like to point out that I work for a company that is about as secure as you can for non-government/classified level work. That said, we can use our personal BB's on the company BES at any point and time we want.

The security reason makes little to no sense, because when you put the BB on the BES, it becomes locked down by whatever IT policies are in place. Yeah, you can strip those policies, but you can do that from any BB, not just the one you previously owned as a personal device. Personal, or bought through the company, it is the same thing. All BlackBerrys (of their respective models numbers) start their lives in the same form, and it isn't until they are put on a carrier's BIS, or a company's BES that they change.

I am willing to bet that the reason is financial. Like someone already said, the company probably purchases a set number of BlackBerrys a year, and doesn't want to lose money on them.

she does not need a BIS plan.. she can access her personal account on a BES plan (assuming the IT Policy on the BES isn't preventing this).. once she's done the Enterprise Activation, all she needs to do is run the "Setup Wizard" and one of the very last steps allows her to add her personal account..

Keep in mind doing this mixes both BES emails and BIS emails together into 1 list.. =/

Originally Posted by CrazEtooN

I would just like to point out that I work for a company that is about as secure as you can for non-government/classified level work. That said, we can use our personal BB's on the company BES at any point and time we want.

The security reason makes little to no sense, because when you put the BB on the BES, it becomes locked down by whatever IT policies are in place. Yeah, you can strip those policies, but you can do that from any BB, not just the one you previously owned as a personal device. Personal, or bought through the company, it is the same thing. All BlackBerrys (of their respective models numbers) start their lives in the same form, and it isn't until they are put on a carrier's BIS, or a company's BES that they change.

I am willing to bet that the reason is financial. Like someone already said, the company probably purchases a set number of BlackBerrys a year, and doesn't want to lose money on them.

Stripping a device of it's policy is pointless as the policy get's resent on a set interval.

Personal and bought by the company is a HUGE difference. If I OWN my own Blackberry, why would I want my company dictating what can and cannot be done/seen or put on MY blackberry?

If you add a personal BB, at that point any and all information going to and from that device is now the property of the companys.. take a racy picture of you and your significant other and now that picture is your company's property, and your BES admin has access to it.

There's not only financial reasons, but also liability reasons for this.. Your company doesn't seem too secure to allow personal BB's on their BES "whenever we want"..

Most company's lock out the PIN-to-PIN messaging feature.. why? Because it's not logged anywhere and anyone that pin's can trade stock secrets, or WHATEVER else they want..

On MY bes, we have IM services disabled.. would you want your PERSONAL bb locked down like that? No one would..

Sniffs, thanks for the response. If my friend is also willing to pay for BIS in addition to the BES on her phone, is it possible to keep the information separate? i.e. the company not having access to information associated with her BIS (personal email, etc)

Originally Posted by sniffs

Stripping a device of it's policy is pointless as the policy get's resent on a set interval.

Personal and bought by the company is a HUGE difference. If I OWN my own Blackberry, why would I want my company dictating what can and cannot be done/seen or put on MY blackberry?

If you add a personal BB, at that point any and all information going to and from that device is now the property of the companys.. take a racy picture of you and your significant other and now that picture is your company's property, and your BES admin has access to it.

There's not only financial reasons, but also liability reasons for this.. Your company doesn't seem too secure to allow personal BB's on their BES "whenever we want"..

Most company's lock out the PIN-to-PIN messaging feature.. why? Because it's not logged anywhere and anyone that pin's can trade stock secrets, or WHATEVER else they want..

On MY bes, we have IM services disabled.. would you want your PERSONAL bb locked down like that? No one would..

I wouldn't and that is why I don't have my personal BB on my company's BES. I wasn't saying that they should strip the IT policy either, I was just saying that I can't see that as a reason not to allow the use of the personal BB, because the stripping can be done to ANY BB; be it a personal one or a company provided one.

If someone wants to take a personally owned BB and put it on their companies BES, they should be willing to accept and understand what they are getting into. If a company provides a Curve and doesn't lock the camera, the same problems with "racy pictures" can still happen. You are also missing that for the OP's wife to use any BlackBerry with her company, she HAS TO BUY IT PERSONALLY. The ONLY difference is that she is required to buy it through the company to use it; she will OWN it regardless of which option she chooses though.

Trust me, my company is as secure as they get. You again don't seem to get it. If my personal Curve gets added to my companies BES, it will be LOCKED TO THEIR REQUIREMENTS. It will ONLY be usable for calendar/contact/email sync. The GPS will be locked due to third party apps being locked out, the camera will be locked, the use of SD cards will be locked, etc. It will be locked to the same exact level as a BB provided by them, so how in the world is it different?

Like I said, I can guarantee the reasoning to be nothing more than the company wanting to make back whatever money they have fronted

Nice information!

Originally Posted by magicianatx

Sniffs, thanks for the response. If my friend is also willing to pay for BIS in addition to the BES on her phone, is it possible to keep the information separate? i.e. the company not having access to information associated with her BIS (personal email, etc)

No.. if it's on a BES, all the info on the device is available in one way shape or form.. put it this way, with certain 3rd party software such as MobileAnalyzer, I can record EVERYTHING done on the device, including URL captures (websites you visit), sms messages, emails, what programs you have installed, I can see how many times you hit a URL, I can trace where your email comes FROM, it's hops inbetween and where it's going to, PIN messages, how often your device connects in to the BES, message utilization, historical stats, device OS, memory, type, your call log, etc..list goes on.

Originally Posted by sniffs

first off, there's a license fee involved. Each BB that is added costs money.. it's not as easy as putting in some info, and bada bing, bada boom connected..

You have to add a license anyway. The question is only which device will get added, not the license. So, your arugment makes no sense.

Each license costs $99 dollars.. This is so that 1 Blackberry can connect to a BES. So why should the company pay that license fee to put a personal BB on it's BES? It shouldn't, and we(I) wouldn't force the user's to pay that, so my company reserves the spots for company purchased devices ONLY.

Again, your argument makes no sense. If a company wishes to have the employee on BES, then they best supply the equipment, license, etc. Here the issue is that an employee merely wants to substitute their own hardware during their employment. This would merely save the employer the cost of the hardware, or mean that already purchased hardware would not be used and thus available as backup etc. The LAPD, for example, allowes (or at least did allow) officers to purchase and use their own M-16, which meant that one was freed up for another officer as they were acquired.

Secondly if it's YOUR device and you put COMPANY content on it.. what happens at that point if you leave the company? Can we wipe it? If we wipe it and you lose your contacts, it becomes a liability.

This is where the company would merely have to set a policy, depending on security needs and the level of trust. Personally, if you are hiring people you can't trust, you are hiring the wrong people, however, I think that our company would simply set a policy that would require the employee to allow the equipment to be inspected/cleared by IT staff at the descretion of management.

Thirdly, if you put a personal BB on a BES, any and ALL information on that device can be seen by the BES admins.. another liability.. If it's company purchased, we have a right to see what is happening on that phone, if it's personal, that right goes out the window.. Invasion of privacy?

Again, this would just require disclosure to the employee, and we would merely have them sign a release stating they understood that although they have choosen to use their own equipment, IT staff would have access etc.

Fourthly, we use IT policies that restrict what you can do.. If it's YOUR device and we restrict it, how fair is that? Do you want your car manufacturer to restrict your air conditioner? or how fast your car can go?

Again, the issue isn't relevant, because the company is paying for service, not the employee. If the individual was paying for service, then policies could be adjusted as required, should the organization so desire. Clearly, this is not something that you might want to do in a large organization, but here I think they are just talking about using different equipment, so she could have a curve instead of whatever model the companies issues.

Originally Posted by lgreenberg

That's the problem. They make the employees buy the devices themselves so they own them.

If the company requires the employee to have the equipment, they must provide it, or they are likely in violation of your state's labor laws. You might want to give your local labor board a call.

My advice is to get another job with a better company that doesn't take advantage of it's employees.

I would agree that the employer gets certain rights to my BB and my use/information. However, it's a trade off - I get to have my calendar, tasks etc. available to me.

For myself, I consider that a fair deal. I don't have or do anything on my BB that I'm concerned about. Heck, I probably have more issues with my use of my computer at work than my BB at work or away. YMMV.