When the federal government announced it was banning TikTok on government devices, it joined nations around the world prohibiting the use of the app amid privacy and cybersecurity concerns. The rationale is based on security fears and the potential for foreign interference by China. As the country’s national intelligence law obliges citizens and organisations to support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts, this could include TikTok’s parent company ByteDance being forced to share Australians’ TikTok data. And this is giving everyone from politicians to dancing teens cause for pause amid the one billion videos watched every day.
While Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the ban would come into effect “as soon as practicable”, it begs the question, if you wanted to ban the use of a particular app in your organisation, how fast could you go about it.
Let’s imagine your CEO decides to follow suit and wants TikTok removed from your people’s phones immediately. First, do you even know how many of your employees have TikTok installed on their devices? Even when you’ve got a good idea of the size of the problem in terms of the number and location of the devices, how are you going to plan and execute this task? And have you identified the policies that need enabling to ensure your people remove this app?
Make no mistake, removing an app from your mobile fleet can amount to a considerable work effort on top of your existing workload.
MDM Management comes to the rescue
Mobile Device Management (MDM) helps you manage and secure your organisation’s fleet of mobile devices, apps, content, and security, as well as effectively manage the corporate space on your people’s personal devices.
With managed MDM from imei, our specialist team can advise on suitable MDM platforms for your requirements and will manage the platform on your behalf. A managed MDM service from imei includes proactive monitoring of devices in real time and quickly responding to security threats or breaches, which helps keep your data safe. It provides peace of mind that your employees’ devices comply with company policies and security protocols.
It also means that in the event you need to remove an app from all your phones, you’ll have specialist people onboard who are responsible for making it happen, fast. So, using a proven cloud solution such as Telstra Enterprise Mobile Protect enabled and managed by imei, we can make TikTok ineffective by blocking traffic and preventing the app from being downloaded in the first place.
Telstra Enterprise Mobile Protect provides an optimal level of protection on your devices. It prevents connections with untrusted Wi-Fi networks, triggers alerts when devices go overseas, and provides app reputation scanning, evaluating apps as low, medium, or high risk, and shutting down apps that request unusually high levels of access to personal data.
In terms of controlling apps, Telstra Enterprise Mobile Protect allows you to:
- Install
- Delete
- Update, and
- Administer license management.
Enabled by a managed MDM service from imei, we’ll be responsible for identifying the devices that have the app installed and send compliance policy enforcement emails to users. We continue sending this communication daily until users have removed the application. Penalties can be applied and enforced if required to further compel app removal.
With experience providing managed MDM services over many years, managed MDM from imei is proven to reduce costs and mitigate the need to hire additional resources in-house to manage mobile devices. As a managed service, you also avoid the cost of purchasing and maintaining the software tools.
If you’re looking to have more control over what’s on your peoples’ devices, talk to imei about Telstra Enterprise Mobile Protect - enabled and managed by imei.
