A netizen said that in his companie’s Human Resource(HR) meeting he was told that his company’s HR department has the ‘right’ and ‘power’ to search the personal items of their staff.
Here is what he said:
Today during an HR meeting employees were told that since we use our phones for work related things (i.e. phone calls to other employees/managers/customers, texts, pictures, maps) All while being out in the field and not given a work phone. That our phones can be searched at anytime. I don’t think this is legal, I think they need a warrant if they wanted anything personal from me.
Here are what netizens think:
- Tell HR that you aren’t comfortable shouldering the expense of the company’s security protocol, and that at your level of compensation, a device should be provided.
- Breach of privacy
- My company needs us to use our phones for work. They offered us a work phone with all expenses covered, or they would pay your bill on your personal phone if you wanted that. The amount of people who “didnt want two phones” and let our company have rights over their personal phones was outstanding.
Man with similar experiences
I’ve told this story before. When I was hired as a VP at a bank years back I was told when I started working that I could use my personal phone for business purposes and the company would pay my cell phone bill. I just needed to sign this piece of paper they put in front of me. I took the paper and then started to read it. The SVP of HR got visibly irritated that I was reading the contract and said to me, “It’s all standard, you don’t need to read it. Everyone just signs it.” Huge red flag that it should be read.
Sure enough, hidden in there was stated that you were essentially signing over the rights to your personal number to the company and at separation you would be forfeiting the number to the company. Basically, they pay your phone bill but they are then legally owner of your number. So everything you do with that number they legally own and have access to.
I declined and told them that they would need to provide me with a company phone separate from my personal phone. The response I got was, “you’re really going to carry around two phones?” Yes, I am.
After I had been there a few weeks and met my peers in upper management I found out that everyone at VP level or higher had 2 phones: personal and business. I also found out that everyone below VP level had 1 phone: personal phone used for business which the bank was paying. I thought it was a very interesting observation.