The use of WhatsApp in the corporate environment is enormous. This is a mistake in many ways

Sending a mistakenly compromised photo to your employer via WhatsApp, coming home from work and See how work chats don’t stop filling up messages Receive or receive calls from family members during work hours, from early morning until early morning Screen shots with personal data Customizable without prior permission. These are some of them Misuse of the instant messaging app According to computer science and data security experts at the College of Computer Engineering, when it is used in a company’s corporate and work environment.

Sergio serves as the executive director of a hotel chain. You have decided not to give your real name or your company name when describing your experience because it will not compromise your job status. He says he has been using two mobiles for a few months. Reason: Your company uses Share What The main communication channel among employees In addition to other incidents that have caused his daily turmoil in recent years, his personal life has begun to take up space in his personal life. Sergio Have to handle managing five different buildings with different WhatsApp chats, In addition to those who include the board of directors and another general, a section of the staff is found.

“We were forced to cut a schedule in our management chat. There is no rule from 7pm, as we informally admit, we have no life. It’s 11pm, people comment on things. People say they don’t care because they see it. No, but they will always end up seeing it, and it should not leave the job or separate. That focus took up a lot of my energySays Sergio.

The biggest disadvantage of corporate use is that it is a communication tool related to private and personal life. This can lead to confusion among your customers or co-workers Total availability at any time of the day Due to its integration with WhatsApp, ”explains Enrique Martinez Brittal, a member of the Computer Security Committee and Secretary of the General Council of Computer Engineering Colleges in Spain.

“It takes away the microspaces from your personal life, eventually adding everything. Also, when you do not have a business cell phone, employers will sometimes get angry when you do not pick up the phone. As if you never had the right to turn it off. Now, when I get home, I leave my mobile in a cupboard and if they do not call, I will not pick it up, ”said Sergio.

Disorder and confusion when documenting and organizing tasks and communications

But the inability to disconnect from work is one of the major disadvantages of using WhatsApp in the workplace. This is where an important point comes in the structure of any company: tracking and documenting files, programs and tasks. “It simply came to our notice then. There is no order. Individual conversations are conducted when there are 20 more people in the group. People often complain, so those people speak for a different site. For a while I had to delete conversations, where I had nothing pending, because in the end you never knew who responded and who did not, ”said Sergio.

It should be borne in mind that, according to Martinez Brittle, “WhatsApp is not for system and documentation purposes, but for quick communication by phone”. He promises, “There are specific tools for these purposes More benefits and apps than WhatsApp, What Dull, Microsoft teams Skype Business ”.

This computer expert and digital technologist clarifies that “it is very easy to lose information or documents on a mobile device, Because WhatsApp does not store information on its servers, Or at least, will not allow downloading after a while, so If any device crashes you may lose information on it, Loss or theft ”.

Not only that. Mixing the business communication channel with each other’s personal lives can lead to misunderstandings or misunderstandings that compromise more than one. “We are confused between organizational groups and personal and work relationships. A co-worker had to write to me directly about a layoff and wrote in a public group chat. The girl, who questioned who should be fired, was surprised and asked for an explanation. Many people make mistakes and send personal photos through chats and then delete them, but it is a disaster if others see it before, ”says Sergio.

In addition, it recognizes that in many cases, bad practices are carried out that infringe on customers’ privacy in order to save time. “We attach documents and take photos of computer screens where customers’ personal data appears, which are sent via WhatsApp. It’s not professional because sometimes the data ends up somewhere else,” he says.

“According to the Data Protection Regulation, the company must have explicit approval for the purpose and communication channel. The customer must have expressed his desire to process his data. In addition, the company must pay special attention when using teams, because in these cases, personal information is shared, ”explains Martinez Britell.

Fernando Suarez, Chairman General Council of Professional Associations in Computer Engineering, Spain, Acknowledges the risks involved in sharing customer data on WhatsApp. “You have to take into account a series of factors, such as the type of data and the network with which it communicates – it’s not the same thing as sharing public WiFi with the company’s WiFi. Like the security status of the devices,” Suarez explains: “In my opinion, this channel is not recommended in any case. , Because that information is still on the device, there are risks involved. ”

When work chases you home … your friends have to work

Sonia – also a fictitious name, is a lawyer in an office where they use WhatsApp to communicate with each other, plan and organize meetings. He has had a similar experience. “It is not uncommon for a customer to call me at night to ask me any questions Or my co-workers give me assignments outside of working hours, “he says.” If they send you an email, you always have an excuse to say you can’t see it until you get home, or wait until the next day when you get to the office, but through WhatsApp They have got the reason that they can write to you at any time, and if they see you online, many times you feel bad for reading the message and not responding to it, ”he adds.

Suarez responds: “It is true that leisure and disconnection time are necessary to influence my personal opinion, but in a society where we tend to deliver and compromise, I believe that in many cases, disconnection does not apply to entitlement.”

This lawyer, in addition, has experienced how personal life mixes with work while he works in the office. “If you have everything on the same mobile, even if you do not want to be involved in work day and personal issues, conversations with friends and family are avoided all the time and it is not possible not to attend to them. Or you are at a work meeting and your mom calls you, for example, ”he says.

“We were able to reduce the level of distraction WhatsApp Web. It’s like typing five words on a computer, picking up a cell phone, typing five words, picking up a cell phone. If you are not a little neat, you always jump to mobile. This distracts you a bit, but once you look at the number, even if you do something important, You will be excited and see who sent whatSays Sonia.

According to Suarez, another flaw is that “you may fall into the trap of ‘everything’; Using it for a specific communication is no better than changing mail or phone, Because it is halfway between the first possibility (attach files, integrate with calendar, …) and the second instantaneous possibility. When we receive a message on a shared work-personal account, we never know which two types it responds to, so most users will try to see it immediately ”.

WhatsApp messages are also legal evidence

Roberto-fictional name, even a lawyer, had some very miraculous experiences on WhatsApp at the corporate level. But this time as a customer and as an individual. He was preparing to renovate an apartment he had just bought a few months ago. To do this, he contacted a company dedicated to renovating the house. After signing the reform agreement and related documents, they informed him that they were going to make communications through WhatsApp.

Thus, Roberto was invited to a group chat in which little by little the crowd joined. “First the painter came in, then the electrician, a plumber, they all belonged to different companies. I do not lend. A few days later they showed different colors, marble or wood types in the photos, so I chose them. I didn’t need to watch the play for months because everything was done through chat. They sent their budgets and contract service sheets there, ”said Roberto. “One day I got serious and met them in the same building to see the results because I was tired on WhatsApp.”

Suarez emphasizes precautionary measures when using WhatsApp to contract services and maintain privacy. “Like all communications, Evidence that it leaves a trace And that Will be significant at the judicial level. But in this case, justice has to go a long way, because this evidence is not easily handled by forensic analysis of the device rather than printing screen shots of the conversation, but they have already been used in cases at the judicial level ”. He concludes: “You need to be very clear about utility events that can be a convenient and favorable tool, as I said before, all of these are not. In its virtues, ease of use, therefore becomes a limitation”, the expert concludes.

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