Is Your Employer Monitoring You Through Your iPhone? (2024)

FAQs

Can my employer monitor my work on my iPhone? ›

Can my employer track my phone? Essentially, yes, as they have the legal right to do so if it's a company phone. Like any other company device, an employer can use phones to monitor the activity of their employees, including their call history, the content of their emails and text messages and which apps they use.

If you are using a mobile phone provided by your company, then yes, your employer may have the right to monitor it, and any text messages sent from it. This means that any and all text communications sent from your company device could be viewed by your boss.

Can my employer see my internet activity on my personal phone? A: NO, if your personal phone is not connected to the company's WIFI or if you did not grant any access to your personal phone to your employer.

Here's what to do: Check phone files. It's possible to find spy software on an Android by looking at your device files. Open Android Settings > Applications > Manage Applications or Running Services and you may be able to spot suspicious-looking files.

(Whether they have the ability to do so without your knowledge is another question, as text message records are stored by cell phone companies, rather than on company servers, and not all employers have access to those records.) Your employer does not, however, have the right to search your personal cell phone.

Because your employer is providing the communications technology, they have the right to track your activities. This includes your internet browsing, how you are using your computer (including the number of keystrokes and the actual words you type), what you store on your computer, and the contents of your work email.

If you suspect your phone is being monitored, check the Storage section in your settings. Here, you should be able to see how much data is being consumed by what. If you notice your device is using more data than usual, that could be an indicator of spyware.

State and federal laws protect text messages and personal calls on your own phone. Your employer would need to show a legitimate business purpose for needing to see your private communications.

Workplace surveillance laws usually allow companies to use video monitoring for legitimate business purposes. Contact an employment attorney if you feel your employer is videotaping employees without a reasonable business purpose.

Can my employer see my screen without me knowing? ›

If you're on your employer's network, your employer can monitor your activity on the Internet. Some employers have web filters that block access to certain websites—and this applies to all devices on that network, including personal cell phones, iPads, and computers.

School or company networks: If you use a network run by your school or employer, they can see your browsing history even if you're in incognito mode.

Can My Boss or Manager See What Websites I Visit On My Phone At Work? If you use your mobile network to look up websites at work, your employer cannot track that activity. However, if you use the company network to connect to the internet on your cell phone, they can see all the activity on the network.

You can find out if your iPhone or iPad is supervised by looking at the settings for your device. The Supervision message is found at the top of the main Settings page. Your organization also has the option to display a custom ownership message on the Lock Screen using the Shared Device Configuration profile payload.

And the law does require that most workplace monitoring—listening in on telephone calls and audio-taping or videotaping conversations—must have some legitimate business purpose. Other than that, however, there are very few federal legal controls protecting workers from being watched and listened to while at work.

An employer may monitor a personal call only if an employee knows the particular call is being monitored—and he or she consents to it. While the federal law seems to put some serious limits on employers' rights to monitor phone calls, some state laws have additional safeguards.

A legitimate purpose for monitoring employees may be, for example, to safeguard the security of personal data while employees are working remotely, to ensure compliance with legal obligations or to ensure an employee is performing their obligations under an employment contract.

Work and Phone Taps

Under the Federal Wiretapping Act, all calls made in the course of business can be legally monitored by an employer.