Corporate(BES) email - can an end user temporarily disable?

Here's the situation. I have had a personal BB for years now, and just recently my employer has decided to allow corporate email on personal devices. My 9930 will be here tomorrow, so I am thinking of setting it up.

The problem I need to solve though - how do I disable only the BES email (but leave all other data - BIS email, BBM, web, etc) as needed? I don't care to disable it often, but the time that comes to mind is when I travel overseas. I don't want to pay for the email to sync to my device, but I still want all of my personal email and other data to work.

Every post I have found so far says it can either be done by the admin side of BES, which I won't have access to, and my company will never support on/off requests like this, or they say to disable all data, which kills the "good" data too.

Any ideas on how to manage this?

Be careful. It is almost never a good idea to put your personal device on a BES, because you lose all control of it and a great deal of your privacy. Talk to your IT department. Find out what their IT policy restricts and requires. You may find that you can no longer install apps, for example, and that you are required to use a password, and that your Text messages and BBM can be logged, including the content.

See also this link, originally posted by Joolie, a super moderator at the BES forum port3101.org: What does BES see? What can be tracked?

That is a great thread about what they can/cannot see. I noticed the original post is from 2009, so my question is how does BB Balance impact this, if any?

My employer has already publicly (to all employees, in writing multiple times) mentioned BB Balance, and specifically said they will not be accessing any personal data. They do state that they can require you to surrender the entire device if needed due to investigations, but that would be the only case. Now, how accurate their statement is would of course be questionable, although I generally trust my employer. I also think that if they were to terminate someone for things done outside of BES, such as text messages, with the policy in writing stating they do not access it, one could potentially have a fairly easy wrongful termination lawsuit. Not saying I want to go down that road, but I would assume it is an option.


I have not fully decided on doing this yet. Part of it is being able to temporarily disable the BES side, if needed. If that is not possible, I will be very unlikely to go ahead with this.

The only way I know to turn off BES would be to remove the IT Policy. That you can easily do. However, that's a one way solution. You can't do it without the tampering being detected the next time you attempt to log in to the Enterprise, and the IT department will have to re-enable your email. Now, if you travel infrequently, and you are in good stead with the IT department, and you clear it in advance, they might be willing to work with you on that. And at least, they couldn't accuse you of violating IT security if they approved it in advance. I don't know any way you can do it without involving your IT department.

I haven't used or researched BlackBerry Balance, so I don't have an opinion on it.

That may be naive of me, but shouldn't the company provide you with a company phone and plan? What if you didn't have a personal BB?

Originally Posted by bchandler02

That is a great thread about what they can/cannot see. I noticed the original post is from 2009, so my question is how does BB Balance impact this, if any?

My employer has already publicly (to all employees, in writing multiple times) mentioned BB Balance, and specifically said they will not be accessing any personal data. They do state that they can require you to surrender the entire device if needed due to investigations, but that would be the only case. Now, how accurate their statement is would of course be questionable, although I generally trust my employer. I also think that if they were to terminate someone for things done outside of BES, such as text messages, with the policy in writing stating they do not access it, one could potentially have a fairly easy wrongful termination lawsuit. Not saying I want to go down that road, but I would assume it is an option.


I have not fully decided on doing this yet. Part of it is being able to temporarily disable the BES side, if needed. If that is not possible, I will be very unlikely to go ahead with this.

AFAIK, BB Balance only affects the storage of things like emails, contacts, and such.

texts, phone calls and BBM messages can still be logged.

+1 JeffH. Difficult to remove IT policy once applied, which happens by definition when the device is configured for BES. You can stop (presumably temporarily) and resume BES messages at will by changing your sync settings but that does not remove BES from the device.

Posted from my BlackBerry using BerryBlab

This is on OS6, I imagine OS7 would be similar. Go to your message box and go to Options. Then select email preferences. Your BES account will be called "Desktop". If you turn off "Send email to handheld", your device will no longer receive email from your BES account. You can then turn it on later.

Actually, it's quite easy to stop delivery of BES messages to your device. I do this when I go on vacation.

You can do this by going to your Message List > Options > Email Settings, and on your "Desktop (BES)" account, there will be an option "Send Email to Handheld".

If you turn that off, the BES will not deliver messages to your device. However, your device will still be able to communicate with the BES.

You can also do this in the desktop & web desktop software as well. It's a straightforward option to change.

Originally Posted by kirkub

That may be naive of me, but shouldn't the company provide you with a company phone and plan? What if you didn't have a personal BB?

It's a purely optional deal that they are offering, many have been asking for. In no way is it mandatory.