The smartphone – a personal device, a company device, or both?

Toby's story is becoming increasingly common in the mobile world. Not so many years ago, most devices vital for conducting company business were mostly provided by the company. Therefore, when issues with the devices arose, employees could simply contact the company's technical support departments to have any issues resolved. This is still the case when the device is company-owned; many laptops, for instance, are still provided by companies and are therefore company-owned. Alternately, smartphones can be employee-owned. The company does not provide these devices to the employee and does not provide funding for the purchase of these devices; the employee is expected to purchase these devices and use them to complete company tasks.

As discussed previously, this is commonly referred to as BYOD. In most cases, when a BYOD smartphone malfunctions or breaks, the employee is expected to resolve the issue on their own. Consequently, if...