Drilling Down Part II: A Public Sector Series for Setting up Text Archiving

 
Click here to review Part 1.
 
In the continuation of our series, 5 Actions to take for an Airtight Mobile Use Strategy in Government, we bring steps 2 and 3 into the light.  This excerpt will guide you with updating your mobile policy and introduce questions when choosing a mobile carrier/plan for your government organization.

Step 2: Update your communications policy to account for business related text messaging.

Make sure mobile device policies include information security and supervisory procedures, explicit direction on acceptable use of text messaging for business purposes, and how compliance will be enforced. Your policy should address the following questions:

  • Which type of device ownership strategy is in place and how is it mandated for business use? Decide to use BYOD, CYOD, COPE or a combination of these scenarios.
  • Which types of mobile communications will be archived and supervised? Be specific with employees, note who, what, when, and how it will be retained and supervised. Employees also need to know if they are required to enable a specific archiving technology on their phone to be compliant.
  • Will you allow employees to whitelist contacts on mobile phones? Describe if, how, and when employees can whitelist certain contacts (usually personal contacts like a spouse or physician) to exclude or prevent sensitive personal or medical conversations from being captured, archived and supervised by their employer.

 
Step 3: Determine which mobile carriers and plans your organization will use.

The mobile carriers and plans your organization uses will have an important role to play in your overall mobile archiving and monitoring strategy, particularly if you use the COPE or CYOD device ownership model.

To start, ask your approved mobile carriers if they have any solutions for Mobile Device Management and performing important tasks, such as disabling iMessage on iPhones via Apple’s Device Enrollment Program.

With a streamlined integration between your mobile carrier and a comprehensive archiving provider, an MDM solution reduces the time associated with managing mobile device security and monitoring compliance. Your HR, legal and Records Management teams will be able to respond to FOIA requests, policy violations, eDiscovery and litigation events more efficiently, using a unified, device-independent, real-time archiving solution.

Look for the final steps in part three of our series next week PLUS the full guide to share with your team: 5 Actions to take for an Airtight Mobile Use Strategy in Government
Here is a quick preview of Steps 4–5:

  • Determine if your organization needs to use a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution
  • Capture, monitor, and report on text message data

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