Please see below a press release from the IT company DSA Connect, on new research revealing that some 4.5 million electronic devices have been handed back to employers as people have been made redundant.
Its research reveals that of those people who have been made redundant or furloughed since the COVID-19 crisis started, 26% have had to give back electronic devices to work. In 50% of cases, they said that these devices had personal information on them including their bank and credit card details, personal passwords, and photos.
With England in a new lockdown and more staff being furloughed or made redundant, the number of devices returned to employers is set to increase further.
There is a mountain of electronic devices that have been returned to employers due to staff being made redundant or furloughed during the crisis. Employers should be looking to clean these devices professionally, ensuring that all data is wiped from them so that they can be reused by staff or sold. Sadly, in too many cases this is not done properly, and new users inadvertently find themselves able to access confidential data they shouldn’t be seeing.