準備離職時當心你的手機數據大綱

In early October, Michael Irvin stood up to leave a New York City restaurant when he glanced at his iPhone and noticed it was powering off. When he turned it back on again, all of his information -- email programs, contacts, family photos, apps and music he had downloaded -- had vanished.

月初的一天，當獨立醫療顧問邁克爾·歐文(Michael Irvin)起身準備離開紐約一家餐館時，他瞥了一眼自己的iPhone，發現iPhone正在關機。當他重新開機時，包括email程序、聯繫人、家庭照片、手機應用和他下載的音樂在內的所有信息都不見了。

The phone looked 'like it came straight from the factory,' said Mr. Irvin, an independent health-care consultant.

歐文說，手機看上去“和直接出廠時一樣”。

It wasn't a malfunction. The device had been wiped clean by AlphaCare of New York, the client he had been working for full-time since April. Mr. Irvin received an email from his AlphaCare address that day confirming the phone had been remotely erased.

這並不是手機故障，而是手機數據被他從4月份開始全職服務的客戶AlphaCare of New York進行了遠程清除。歐文當天收到一封來自他AlphaCare地址的電子郵件，確認手機數據已被遠程擦除。

As more companies allow and even encourage employees to use their own phones and tablets for work activities, often referred to as 'bring your own device,' or BYOD, an unexpected consequence has arisen for workers who have seen their devices wiped clean -- remotely and with little or no advance warning -- during or after employment by firms looking to secure their data. Twenty-one percent of companies perform remote wipes when an employee quits or is terminated, according to a July 2013 survey by data protection firm Acronis Inc.

如今有更多的公司允許甚至鼓勵員工用自己的手機和平板電腦辦公（通常被稱爲“自帶設備辦公”或BYOD），一種意外後果也隨之產生。員工會發現自己設備上的信息在工作期間或離職後被尋求保護數據的公司全部清除（遠程操作，而且幾乎或者根本沒有提前警告）。數據保護公司Acronis Inc 2013年7月份的一項調查顯示，21%的公司會在員工辭職或者被解僱時進行遠程清除。

Joel Landau, AlphaCare's chairman, declined to confirm whether Mr. Irvin's phone had been erased. He provided a copy of AlphaCare's BYOD policy, effective as of July, which includes a reference to remote wiping. Mr. Irvin said he was never given a copy of the policy.

AlphaCare的董事長喬爾·蘭多(Joel Landau)拒絕確認是否清除了歐文的手機信息。他提供了一份有關AlphaCare BYOD政策的文件，該政策從7月份開始生效，其中包括涉及遠程清除的規定。歐文說，公司從未向他提供該政策相關文件。

Phone wiping is just another example of the complications that emerge when the distinctions between our work and personal lives collapse. Employers increasingly expect workers to be available 24/7 but don't always provide company equipment to make that possible, leaving workers in a bind: Expose themselves to losing personal information when a phone is erased, or refuse to use a personal device and risk looking disengaged.

清除手機數據只是工作與個人生活界限消失過程中出現的又一道難題。僱主越來越多地期望員工能全天候待命，但又不是總能提供必要的公司設備，於是讓員工陷入兩難境地：如果手機數據被清除，會有丟失個人信息的風險，而拒絕使用個人設備又會讓人感覺自由散漫。

The practice hangs in legal limbo at the moment, say employment lawyers and privacy advocates, thanks to the inability of legislation and case law to keep pace with innovation. The Society for Human Resource Management in November warned its members that phone wiping 'will likely be tested through the courts in the days and months ahead.'

勞動法律師和隱私權倡導者稱，由於立法和判例法沒能跟上創新的腳步，這種做法目前尚處於法律的灰色地帶。美國人力資源管理協會(Society for Human Resource Management) 11月份警告其成員，清除手機數據之舉“今後一段時間可能會在法庭上接受考驗”。

If erasing a phone is necessary from a data-protection standpoint, employers should give workers advance notice so they can back up personal information, said Lewis Maltby, founder of the National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit group that monitors workplace issues, including privacy. Instead, many are simply 'following the path of least resistance without thinking about the consequences' for employees.

美國工作權利學會(National Workrights Institute)創始人劉易斯·莫爾特比(Lewis Maltby)表示，如果從數據保護角度來說有清除手機信息的必要性，那麼僱主應該提前告知員工，好讓員工備份個人信息。但許多僱主只是“按阻力最小的方式來，而不考慮給員工造成的後果”。美國工作權利學會是一家監控隱私權等職場問題的非盈利組織。

Many employers have a pro forma user agreement that pops up when employees connect to an email or network server via a personal device, he added. But even if these documents explicitly state that the company may perform remote wipes, workers often don't take the time to read it before clicking the 'I agree' button.

他補充說，許多僱主都有一個形式上的用戶協議，該協議會在員工通過個人設備連接到電子郵件或網絡服務器時彈出。但即使這些文件明確聲明公司可能會採取遠程清除，員工通常也不會在點擊“同意”按鈕之前花時間細看。

Phone wiping has become the most common complaint received in recent months by his organization, Mr. Maltby said.

莫爾特比說，清除手機數據已成爲他所在機構近月來最常接到的投訴。

Philip Gordon, chairman of employment law firm Littler Mendelson's Privacy and Background Check group, has heard from two clients whose ex-employees complained after their devices were erased, each demanding compensation.. (In one case, the employee had lost photos of a relative who had died.). Though neither pressed charges, Mr. Gordon expects legal remedies for workers may be found under state computer-trespass statutes, which were originally designed to prosecute hackers.

勞動法律師事務所Littler Mendelson旗下隱私和背景調查(Privacy and Background Check)集團董事長菲利普·戈登(Philip Gordon)曾聽兩名客戶說起過類似糾紛。這兩家公司的前僱員曾在設備數據被清除後進行投訴，每位員工都要求賠償……（在其中一起案例中，員工丟失了一位已故親人的照片）。儘管兩起案例都沒有正式起訴，但戈登認爲也許可以根據州電腦侵入法規（原本是爲起訴黑客而設計的）爲這些員工找到法律救濟。

A former employee of Hopkinton, Mass.-based cloud-computing firm EMC Corp. who requested anonymity, said his phone was wiped a few years ago after he was terminated for not hitting sales quotas. The employee started the job without a smartphone, and EMC didn't provide one, but he said he was missing late-night notices of meeting changes and other important information, so he purchased an Android device.

總部位於馬薩諸塞州霍普金頓(Hopkinton)的雲計算公司EMC Corp.一位要求匿名的前僱員說，幾年前，他因未達銷售指標而被公司解僱時，他的手機數據被清除了。這名員工剛開始工作時沒有智能手機，EMC也沒有提供手機，但他表示，由於他會錯過深夜發送的會議調整通知和其他重要信息，因此他購買了一臺安卓(Android)設備。

On midnight of the day he was terminated, the phone went blank. 'I was completely surprised,' he said. 'I know it's so they can protect their data assets, but if that's such an important policy, we shouldn't be mixing business with personal.' He has no memory of signing a release or user agreement, though he concedes that a dialogue box may have appeared when he first connected to EMC's server 'and like everyone else, I was like 'OK, check.''

在他被解僱當天的午夜，他的手機被清空了。他說：“這完全出乎我的意料，我知道他們這樣做是爲了保護數據資產，但如果這項政策如此重要，我們就不應該把工作和個人的東西混在一起。”他不記得曾與公司簽署過免責或用戶協議，不過他承認，當他首次連接EMC服務器時可能出現過一個對話框，他說：“和其他所有人一樣，我的反應是‘好，劃勾’。”

In a statement, EMC declined to comment on individual personnel matters but said it doesn't, 'as a matter of standard practice, remove personal information from departing employees' personal cellphones.'

EMC發佈聲明稱，公司拒絕就個別的人事問題置評，但該公司表示：“按照標準做法，公司不會從離職員工的個人手機上清除個人信息”。

Since the BYOD trend started gaining momentum about two years ago, most large companies have adopted mobile device management systems to cover the expanding number of tech products that workers tote around, said Lawrence Pingree of technology research firm Gartner. The latest versions of the software allow IT staff to surgically remove work-related material from a smartphone or computer, a feature that is becoming a best practice in the field, he said.

科技行業研究公司Gartner 的勞倫斯·平格里(Lawrence Pingree)表示，BYOD趨勢從大約兩年前開始興起以來，多數大公司都採用了移動設備管理系統，以管理不斷增加的便攜式科技產品。他說，最新版的軟件允許IT員工從智能手機或電腦上有針對性地清除工作相關材料，這種功能正成爲業界的最佳做法。

Mr. Gordon of Littler Mendelson counsels clients to have a BYOD user agreement that tells employees what will happen to their phones if they separate from the company. 'If the employer is deliberate about letting employees use their personal devices for work, they can eliminate the risk,' he said.

Littler Mendelson的戈登建議客戶籤一個BYOD用戶協議，告訴員工如果離開公司，他們的手機會出現什麼情況。他說：“如果僱主在讓員工用個人設備辦公時能慎重考慮，就能消除風險。”

And employees, he added, should back up devices regularly to a cloud program or personal computer. That can still create data protection issues for employers, and companies should forbid workers from backing up corporate data -- or at least have a policy saying that. 'Whether or not people will follow that policy is hard to say,' he said.

他補充稱，對員工來說，應該定期在雲程序或個人電腦上對設備進行備份。但這仍會給僱主帶來數據保護問題，公司應當禁止員工備份企業數據──或者至少制定相關政策。不過他說：“人們能不能遵守政策就很難說了。”