There is still a lack of models for location-independent working and suitable mobile devices in many areas of the economy. At the same time, the proportion of employees who want to work on the move or from home is steadily increasing. The mobile devices required for this are expensive to purchase and time-consuming to manage. It is therefore not uncommon for employees to use private devices for work purposes. This repeatedly leads to violations of IT security and data protection guidelines. Strict separation of business and private data is the only way to comply with the strict guidelines in this scenario.
Employees’ desire for hybrid working models poses a major challenge not only for the economy, but also for public authorities. Authorities have strict presence requirements, long investment cycles, strict legal regulations, strict security guidelines and limited financial resources for the necessary technical equipment. For example, the use of the cloud or communication apps such as WhatsApp is prohibited. However, due to limited financial resources, there is often not enough money to purchase company smartphones with secure communication solutions. Due to a lack of alternatives, employees circumvent the above-mentioned bans and use apps such as WhatsApp to exchange security-critical, confidential or personal data. This creates a new form of shadow IT that is difficult for IT departments to monitor.
In order to minimize the resulting risks, it is also essential for public authorities to develop a suitable COPE or BYOD strategy.
BYOD or COPE – Which solution approach is better?
With the “Corporate Owned, Personally Enabled” (COPE) principle, public authorities provide their employees with a device that can also be used for private purposes. At first glance, this sounds promising from an employee perspective, but it also has some disadvantages. Due to limited financial resources, company cell phones are often not the latest models. Older smartphones have a serious disadvantage: support for the operating systems expires at a certain point in time and these devices then become a risk if they are not updated. In addition, without a secure communication solution, popular applications such as WhatsApp cannot be used on the work phone for private purposes.
A Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy can circumvent these problems. It makes it possible for government employees to use their private smartphones and tablets for work-related tasks in compliance with regulations. Studies by the Future panels “State and administration” 2021 and the Bitkom survey however, revealed that there are still considerable concerns on the part of the authorities regarding the safety of this concept.
A secure communication solution is needed to ensure secure communication in public authorities and to dispel these concerns.
Secure communication through strict separation of private and business data
Authorities can only comply with the strict legal requirements and binding security guidelines for hybrid working if business and private data are strictly separated. However, this strict separation must not restrict the flexibility or user-friendliness of the application.
The container technology makes it possible: the container functions like a “digital safe” in which sensitive government data and documents are stored in encrypted form. Other applications installed on the device have no access to this data. As the entire data transfer is encrypted end-to-end, the official data is fully protected against unauthorized access. The SecurePIM Government SDS system solution also has a secure e-mail, calendar, address and notes function, a hardened browser for web-based applications and its own messenger including an encrypted telephony function for individual and group chats, video telephony, voice calls and document dispatch. It also meets all security standards and is approved (iOS) and cleared (Android) by the German Federal Office for Information Security for data processing up to the classification level “VS-NfD” (classified information – for official use only).
If authorities want to enable their employees to work securely and conveniently from any location, the BYOD model in combination with a secure communication solution is the ideal solution. Thanks to container technology, private and business data are kept strictly separate. At the same time, the solution increases the security and efficiency of work processes in the authorities. For employees, on the other hand, the application changes virtually nothing. In addition to the flexibility gained, this leads to a high level of acceptance and thus also to widespread use of the secure communication solution and prevents shadow IT. [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]