Is Data Security a Barrier to Telecommuting?
Written by Real Telecommuting on April 3rd, 2008We have the technology for data transfer, but what about data security? Carl Weinschenk examines this pressing issue:
For telework proponents, there certainly is good news in CDW Corporation’s latest survey. For instance, it says that 14 percent of private sector employees telecommute and 17 percent of federal folks work at home. Seventy-six percent of private companies offer remote work support – an increase of 27 percentage points from last year – and 56 percent of federal agencies do as well.
Security remains the top concern of 42 percent of federal and 27 percent of private IT pros. Over 80 percent of the professionals in both groups said that they rate their security systems and procedures as effective. More than half in each group – 56 percent of federal and 74 percent of private – authenticate machines and people separately. Almost 70 percent of employers provide the computers and equipment that telecommuters use.
This is all good. The question, however, is whether it is enough.
For a while, it was axiomatic that telecommuting was the wave of the future. Then the common wisdom shifted, and telework became a disappointment. The reality is that telecommuting can find a way through almost all the doubts and obstacles that skeptics throw in its way. People will goof off if they work at home? It’s possible to compare productivity and incentivize people to work at the appropriate level. (Indeed, in this economy, the incentive should be that they keep their job.) Telecommuting hurts team building and cooperative projects? New software alleviates a lot of the problems of a dispersed work force.
The only immovable barrier, it seems, will be security, simply because what is at stake in that discussion is so much greater: A worker not generating as much work at home as at the office or who feels isolated is too bad. The loss of sensitive data because a home computer is poorly protected is a potential crisis. It is important to note that the CDW study focuses on the attitudes of IT professionals. Of course, it is possible for them to say that they feel the organization is adequately protected. The key, however, is how the CEO and CFO feel. (More.)
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