Summer intern season is approaching, and many businesses will bring on temporary help without giving much thought to the IT implications. One of the more overlooked risks involves company data ending up on a personal device.
It’s alarmingly common to allow interns to use their own laptop to access company email or to download and save files such as client lists or proposals. But when the internship ends, there’s no way to ensure that data has been removed from a machine which you don’t own and have no legal right to access.
Most interns intend to cooperate. But if someone forgets or decides not to comply, or if the relationship ends badly, your options are limited. You can ask someone to voluntarily delete data from their personal property, but there is little recourse if they decline.
The most practical solution is to ensure temporary employees are working on a device your organization controls, either a company-owned device or a virtual computer. Microsoft’s Windows 365 is worth considering for exactly this use case.
Windows 365 provides a full Windows environment in the cloud, accessible from any device but storing nothing locally. When employment ends, the account is de-provisioned and the environment disappears, leaving no data behind.
If your business regularly brings on seasonal or temporary help and doesn’t have a plan for managing access to company data, we can help you plan the right setup before the summer rush.
