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Deutsche Bank Switches Off Text Messaging (smh.com.au)
Deutsche Bank has banned text messages and communication apps such as WhatsApp on company-issued phones in an effort to improve compliance standards. From a report: The functionality will be switched off this quarter, chief regulatory officer Sylvie Matherat and chief operating officer Kim Hammonds told staff in a memo. Unlike emails, text messages can't be archived by the bank, said a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. "We fully understand that the deactivation will change your day-to-day work and we regret any inconvenience this may cause," Matherat and Hammonds said in the memo. "However, this step is necessary to ensure Deutsche Bank continues to comply with regulatory and legal requirements." The policy also applies to private phones used by employees for work purposes. Communication apps such as WhatsApp, Google Talk, iMessage are also prohibited, the memo said.
Unfortunately this is starting to occur is lots of places. Companies are being forced, or choosing to, move away from real time communication back to email in large numbers due to laws around compliance and a desire to comply at the lowest possible cost. Personally I see these moves as harmful to the business long term but the management I've spoken with about the issue are not interested in taking on that challenge now.
Only about half of large organizations allow BYOD. See the graph here.
What's the betting that another department complains about this breaking their SMS based two factor authentication once this is rolled out...
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
If your company has a blackberry enterprise server installed
I doubt that even Blackberry has a Blackberry Enterprise Server installed anymore.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Given the regulatory requirements this makes sense. At one major US financial institution, where I worked, this is the norm, because the risk of information leakage is an issue. You even need to use application such as Mobile Iron or Good for accessing company e-mail. Company issued iPhones had the the essentials an nothing more, with certificates limiting what you could do with the phone.
At the same time, there was a move towards BYOD, which does provide a bit of a chink in the wall, but still requires Mobile Iron or Good for accessing company e-mail and a certificate limiting certain operations. You can't copy/paste from Mobile Iron or Good, for example.
These companies need to show to regulators that they are meeting requirements and maybe even going slightly beyond. All e-mail in and out is recorded for 7 years.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think it'll be interesting to see if it actually does hurt productivity.
Here's what I think will happen. A very few people will be seriously hampered in their work. Most people will end up about as productive as they were before. And some people may do a little better.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.