Banning Of Mp3 Players At The Workplace - Your Experience

[terrabytetango]

When I was in the employ of a certain IT company, virtuous of nature and located in the constellation city of three stars, I returned from the US to find a nasty surprise, namely I could not carry my Zune in beyond the security gate. When I protested, the explanation I received was that it's a USB capable device. Basically any data storage device with a computer interface was banned, as was computer readable media.

I'm wondering if this is a growing trend in SL or simply isolated paranoia.

[NPP]

I'm not sure about MP3 players but some companies do not allow any data transferable devices, specially if the data in the company is sensitive.

It's a requirement for the IS audits as well i believe

[heavyD]

So no mobile phones either then? Since you can use em as portable data devices?

Edited July 3, 2012 by heavyD

[terrabytetango]

So no mobile phones either then? Since you can use em as portable data devices?

I wanted to argue that as well, but considering I carried a pocket pc at the time, I didn't want to take my chances.

[hrm]

Same in my work place too. but they are usually looking at pen drives, dongles etc. but lot of guys infact take mp3 players inside without trouble. One thing I heard there is when somebody plug a pen drive to any of the desktops, an alert will fire to IT manager's blackberry and in the employee contract they clearly mention doing such thing will be entitled for termination. real bull shit.

Wonder whether your work place refers to my one.

[Magnum]

the awesome feeling of being the boss!

[jehan80]

When I was in the employ of a certain IT company, virtuous of nature and located in the constellation city of three stars, I returned from the US to find a nasty surprise, namely I could not carry my Zune in beyond the security gate. When I protested, the explanation I received was that it's a USB capable device. Basically any data storage device with a computer interface was banned, as was computer readable media.

I'm wondering if this is a growing trend in SL or simply isolated paranoia.

No, it's not a growing trend. That doesn't even make sense. Well, where I work, the USB ports on the individual PC's are blocked for data...so you still can use any of your mp3 players, or plug them in to the USB sockets to charge....

Edited July 3, 2012 by jehan80

[Pericles]

I wouldn't call it a growing trend, but IT companies are trying to put it in place. I think after being met with major resistance, our guys decided it wasn't practical to implement, specially since we moved to laptops, which we take to client sites, work from home and have to connect to other networks, etc. Its sort of self policed policy, its up to employees to be responsible about the content of their machines. Technically no having music, movies, pics, any software unrelated to office stuff on the laptops, but not monitored.

[Watchman]

While I was working in a global bank in SL some years back it was the normal case where most Bank users' computers werent allowed to transfer any data out of the computer/network (this even included burning CDs); all online email sites were blocked including facebook messaging. Even emails were restricted to internal Lotus notes; which all makes sense.

Its normal that companies would want to be 'in control' of everything; but in this day and age its not possible. Heck my current company (in the IT industry) still has a clause in its employment contract handbook saying that if you're to take in any photographic device into the office you should declare it to the security. And if you're to use it you should get a "photographer" arm band from the security and wear it while taking photos.

[Davy]

When I was in the employ of a certain IT company, virtuous of nature and located in the constellation city of three stars, I returned from the US to find a nasty surprise, namely I could not carry my Zune in beyond the security gate. When I protested, the explanation I received was that it's a USB capable device. Basically any data storage device with a computer interface was banned, as was computer readable media.

I'm wondering if this is a growing trend in SL or simply isolated paranoia.

Ah the "Global Team"... Worked there for over 3 years and my observation was that it became strict by the day. And as someone has already pointed out, it has to do with Information Security.

The aforementioned company deals with a lot of global clients who need their IT service provider(s) to adhere to strict guidelines when it comes to dealing with their data and business processes. So they are at CMMI level 3 and adhere to most Intellectual Property and Information Security standards. As a result, they are able to label themselves as a company with high standards, thus attracting a lot of clients. I'm not aware of other local IT companies which are at CMMI level 3 or above apart from this one, so it's unlikely that most restrictions imposed by this company are followed by others as well.

It is the employees who suffer great inconvenience due to these high standards and I can definitely say that this particular restriction is just one of them. There are so many rules and regulations implemented internally in order to adhere to the security standards.

We can't really say whether it's a growing trend or not, if a certain company decides to adhere to some sort of information security standard, they will be compelled to implement these restrictions.

Edited July 5, 2012 by Davy