These days, employees’ phones contain your company’s sensitive data. Sure, IT can wipe the data off of the phone remotely, but ONLY when the employee notifies someone that they lost their phone. What happens is the users do not notify IT, and the lost phone still contains the sensitive data. To solve this problem…

Just make sure your employees know it is just fine if they lose a phone. Phones are replaceable; an incident of “lost or stolen data” cannot be reversed.

One of our best clients has adopted the strategy of telling their employees, “Don’t be afraid to lose your phone. It is ok to lose it.” In fact, the company buys insurance on the phones, and even tells the employees it is ok to break phone.

They want their workforce to realize the phone is “a replaceable tool they use to access the irreplaceable security of data.”

This results in the worker complying with the direction, “If you think you lost your phone, contact IT immediately.”

Furthermore, the policy works. For more than a year now, each time an employee misplaces their phone, they notify IT immediately. IT then locks the phone remotely and causes the phone to start emitting a “screaming baby” sound.

Usually the phone is located in moments, and if not, IT proceeds to perform a remote wipe of the data on the device.

Though there are many facets to mobile security, one of the most important parts is getting your workers to notify IT as soon as they lose a device. What a great solution!