As the lines between work and private life get blurred in this age of hybrid and remote work, employees increasingly expect their personal data and apps to be protected on their work devices. At the same time, IT teams need to ensure corporate data remains secure while delivering a productive user experience.

With Android 12, we’re focused on helping organizations achieve the right balance between protecting employee privacy and equipping IT with necessary security and controls. For employees, that means additional privacy controls over which work apps can access their device data, similar to their experience with personal apps. For IT admins, it means more controls to apply the right set of management configurations for work devices.

Enhancing employee privacy and transparency

Android 12 introduces user privacy enhancements for all managed devices, including improved transparency of admin controls. Work profile users will be able to approve (if allowed by their IT admin) or deny sensor-related permissions, such as location and camera, to work profile apps. On fully-managed devices, IT admins can choose to give their users this same control.

To further protect user privacy, admins will be able to set up WiFi networks for employees through a new network API that doesn’t require user location permissions.

Hardware device IDs for personal devices have also changed. Now, instead of solely hardware-based identifiers, companies can use a combination of hardware and employer-specific identifiers that help preserve employee privacy if they leave their organization.

Android 12 provides users with additional privacy tools, such as microphone and camera indicators and controls, to determine how much information users share with apps. We’ve worked to ensure these privacy features all perform seamlessly for managed devices.

Expanding IT controls and management consistency

Android 11 brought the same work profile privacy features from employee-owned devices to company-owned devices. For Android 12, we’ve added additional controls to help enterprise IT teams reduce security risks and ensure tighter monitoring of business data.

A key addition is network logging for the work profile, to give organizations added control and reporting for their work data, while still protecting user privacy in the personal profile.

We’re also empowering IT to decide what input method editors (IMEs) employees can use in their personal profiles to reduce the risk of using a rogue keyboard that could capture data on the device. IT will also have the ability to disable USB signaling for anything but charging, reducing the risk of USB-based attacks.

Historically, IT admins enforced strict password requirements, forcing users to create highly-complex passwords that were hard to remember. Employees have sometimes resorted to writing down these complicated passwords or they’ve forgotten them altogether, leading to factory resets. Thanks to hardware security improvements that prevent brute-force attacks, these kinds of passwords aren’t needed anymore.

Admins can now easily set password requirements that meet modern security best practices by choosing between pre-set password complexity levels. This will help users and administrators find balance between security and simplicity. We’ve also made it easier for users to set up a separate password for their work profile. Read our newest report, Simplifying Password Quality in Android 12, to learn more.

IT admins will also have the option to slice their 5G network and dedicate connectivity to all apps on a fully-managed device, or specifically to apps in the work profile. In partnership with their carrier, admins will be able to have wider control over quality of service and security of work data.

Join us for the Art of Control digital event

Learn more about all of the ways we’re improving security and management at The Art of Control on October 27. Register for our first Android Enterprise security and management digital event, where we’ll share the latest features in Android 12 through demos and analyst briefings. You’ll also hear from customers like Schneider Electric about how they’re using Android Enterprise to achieve effortless control.

Editor's note: Today’s post is by Ravi Mohan, General Manager, and Diwesh Sahai, Head of Engineering, for MyGate. The India-based company provides software for managing 20,000 residential housing communities throughout the country.

MyGate is a fast-growing company in India that aims to simplify the living experience in gated communities. Residents in over 20,000 communities across India use the MyGate mobile app to grant visitors entry, pay their leases, and get health and safety notices directly from management. 

Our app began with a focus on security management for residential communities, and has since become a central hub for updating residents about health and safety, and providing a marketplace for in-home services from third parties — with more features on the way. MyGate is currently used in over 3.5 million residences throughout India, and we’re continuing to scale our operations to bring these benefits to even more communities. 

Android Enterprise is key to keeping our employees connected no matter where their day takes them, thanks to strong security and effortless management. 

Finding the right balance with work profile

Our IT team uses Google endpoint management to enroll and manage our corporate-owned Android devices with the work profile. Our hybrid teams access Google Workspace from more than 2,000 devices, with a dedicated space for work apps in their profile.

Many of our teams prefer to complete quick tasks directly from their Android devices, like answering comments in a doc, replying to a thread in Gmail or updating a sheet.

Our sales teams are often on the go — regularly meeting with potential customers, checking in with current clients, and working from the office or at home. We use managed Google Play to enroll everyone’s device with the MyGate app, which our teams use to demonstrate to prospective customers how our service simplifies life in a gated housing community and gives residents a welcome and positive living experience.

Our employees are big fans of the work profile, especially the separation of company and personal apps. And our IT team appreciates the combination of security for company data and  privacy for our employees. We allowlist the specific apps that are essential to our employees’ daily work, so they always have them in the work profile. Managing updates and installing new apps through managed Google Play helps us keep everyone up to date with the tools they need. And employees like the privacy for the personal side of their device, with the ability to disconnect when they need to by pausing their work profile.

Keeping the connection

Android Enterprise also complements our growing Chrome OS device deployment. With our Chrome Enterprise upgrade management capabilities, we’ve been able to quickly give employees devices that are simple to enroll and ready to use. Google Meet has also been essential for team meetings and quick syncs, and has helped us securely scale our contact center team operations.

At MyGate, our goal is to provide safety and convenience to housing residents, right from their mobile device. By managing our company-owned smartphones with Android Enterprise, we are confident that we can scale quickly with strong data and device protection, and management controls for our security needs.

Editor’s note:Today’s post is from Frej Krook, Collaboration Community Manager for Employee Tools at Trimble. The California-based company builds specialized hardware, software and services for customers in the agriculture, construction, geospatial, transportation and logistics industries to help them better capture data in the field and improve efficiency and outcomes.  

Keeping a global business like Trimble connected is no small amount of work. Our hybrid teams create solutions for a wide range of industries — helping farmers achieve better outcomes through data analysis, offering hardware for geospatial mapping and improving transportation efficiency.

Android Enterprise is one of our keys to keeping everyone connected securely, combining strong security controls with the flexibility to get anyone the apps they need. It simplifies how we manage and protect the thousands of Android devices on our network. The vast majority of these devices are employees’ personal phones enrolled with the work profile; our data and apps are securely managed, while our teams have privacy over their personal data and flexibility to disconnect.

The ideal BYOD solution

We’ve long believed in the value of a “bring your own device” policy. When employees tell our IT team that they want to use their Android phone for work, you should see the big smiles on our faces. Enrolling a personal device with a work profile enables us to set up and manage the device with the settings we need, and the employee gets to keep using a phone they’re familiar with. Devices with the work profile are quick and easy to set up, with minimal impact to support time.

From engineering to sales, marketing and field service, Android devices are key to our global team. Along with the Workspace apps they use to collaborate with every day, we push out our catalogue of more than 50 Trimble apps our teams count on to build client software solutions, test hardware in the field and help clients keep track of their logistics.

Secure and flexible device management

The work profile transforms our employees' personal phones into secure work devices while giving them the freedom to keep using them in a personal capacity. By managing the work profile through Google advanced endpoint management, we only control the apps and data in the work profile and don’t touch employees’ personal apps and data. Our IT team can enforce consistent policies across work profile apps that help prevent data loss.

Employees get better balance by having the ability to pause the work profile when they wish to disconnect.  We also like that if an employee leaves Trimble or loses a phone, we can wipe the work profile with a few clicks in the Admin console. Any Trimble data is securely wiped, and the employee doesn’t have to have their entire phone erased and start from scratch if they leave the company. 

The work profile gives a clear division between work and personal apps, which makes our security teams happy. By allowing users to access work apps on their personal devices, Trimble sees significant cost savings by not having to give each employee a phone just for work.

Another major component to our flexible work success is Chrome Enterprise. With Chrome OS, our IT team has secure, fast devices that work in the cloud while also providing the flexibility to access legacy tools through Parallels Desktop. No matter where we are working, we have devices that are simple to manage with the apps we need.

Building Android solutions

Trimble also builds rugged Android smartphones to offer customers hardware that is well suited to demanding, outdoor environments. The Trimble TDC600 and Nomad 5 enable data collection and connectivity through devices that can withstand all-day use in the field.

With Android, the devices can work seamlessly with our portfolio of applications and provide customers the flexibility to take advantage of the broad app ecosystem of the Google Play Store.

Navigating return-to-office with Android Enterprise

Android Enterprise will play a major role as we transition back to the office. With many of our employees choosing a mix of working from home and in the office, staying connected through their Android devices will be an essential lifeline to their work.

We see Android Enterprise as the ideal device management solution for Trimble. Employees get a better user experience, and we spend less time on support. We believe Android Enterprise will continue to play a central role in our device strategy to give our teams the flexibility they want in how they work and to achieve better balance with their personal time.

Mobility is critical to how businesses keep their teams connected, especially in a hybrid world where so many of us can work from anywhere. This trend is great for team productivity, and it gives businesses the tools they need to digitize their work and serve customers. 

Yet these businesses must be ever mindful of threats to device security — 47% of companies have seen an increase in cyberattacks since the work from home shift began. 

Security breaches can be devastating for any organization, especially with mobile devices being linked to a company’s sensitive data. But unfortunately small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are less able to absorb the high costs of these security breaches. According to a National Cyber Security Alliance survey, after experiencing a breach, 10% of SMBs file for bankruptcy and 25% go out of business.

With limited budgets and IT resources, most SMBs must choose between management products that are costly and overly complex for their needs, or no protection at all. 

At Google, we take a security-first approach to our products, and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes keep their data safe and secure. That is why we built Android Enterprise Essentials — an automatic and affordable security service for businesses with simpler needs.  Essentials is designed and built by the Android team at Google, guided by our deep experience creating secure and helpful solutions for organizations. We’ve put the needs and realities of SMBs first to create a streamlined set of security and management defaults at an affordable price.

Available in more markets

After offering early access to Essentials through our launch partners, it is now generally available through additional partners in the U.S., the U.K, Japan, France and Germany, with more countries coming soon.

Essentials makes securing and managing devices a breeze. Devices with Essentials are automatically enabled with critical features enabled like remote wiping lost or stolen devices and enforcing a screen lock or preventing sideloading of applications. You can send devices directly to your employees, who can automatically set them up and put them to use right away with no training required. If you ever need to take action, you can view and manage devices via an easy-to-use, streamlined portal. And it all comes at an affordable price, with no additional IT investment required.

Essentials also works for larger organizations that wish to extend core protections to devices that don’t need advanced device management. Essentials can serve as a starting point for customers who want to try out simple management at first, and consider upgrading to more sophisticated management solutions in the future.

Simple solutions for customers

National Services for Health Improvement (NSHI) is a U.K.-based organization focused on improving patient outcomes for its network of global healthcare clients. Essentials provided a quick method to mobilize its teams without a complex setup process.

Morris & Perry, an asphalt and concrete supplier that has been in operation in the U.K. since 1928, wanted to help its drivers stay connected and access important data throughout the day. Essentials offered them a simple path to select devices and quickly get them into employees’ hands with security features like remote wipe and PIN reset automatically enabled.

“Setting up our devices with Android Enterprise Essentials was fast and easy,” says Will Vincent, financial controller with Morris & Perry. “It significantly helped our operations, as we can remotely reset PIN codes while meeting our security guidelines.”

Get started today

Essentials is now available through a wider network of resellers. We’re pleased to welcome The Barcode Warehouse and Telserve in the U.K.; LDLC Pro, DAMS and Saphelec in France; Brodos and Everphone in Germany; Synnex in Japan and Vox Mobile in the U.S.

By 2024, mobile workers (employees who use mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for work) will account for over 60% of the total U.S. workforce, according to research from IDC. A large percentage of the mobile workforce will continue to work from home even as the mandatory COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and closures are lifted.

With the increase of workers at home, and a large number of companies announcing hybrid work plans, employees are increasingly juggling work and personal life on a single device. Many are struggling to find the right balance between creating separation of work-life balance and maintaining privacy.

As researchers on the Android Enterprise team, we are always curious about the various needs and expectations of mobile employees who use their smartphones for both work and personal purposes. So we began a research project to understand the elements that comprise the ideal smartphone experience. 

Our qualitative research shed light on the importance of work-life balance, privacy and wellbeing. We partnered with experience management firm Qualtrics to assess and quantify the qualitative findings through a study with more than 3,000 smartphone users around the world. For more details, read the Qualtrics blog.

Managing work and personal life on a single smartphone

The study revealed that 68% of employees use one smartphone for both work and personal purposes, while 32% use two smartphones, though not always simply one for work and one for personal use. Looking across the two groups, 85% of employees use at least one smartphone for both work and personal use. 

To get a bird's-eye view on the needs of people who use a single smartphone for both work and personal use, the team surveyed both users of the Android work profile — a dedicated space on Android devices where work apps are kept separate from personal apps and data — and non-work profile users, including those on other mobile operating systems.

Separation is key to satisfaction

Across the various user groups surveyed, 70% said they’d prefer a user interface (UI) on their phones that clearly separates work and personal apps and data, over a UI with no separation. Users mentioned that a clear delineation between work and personal apps and data can help them improve digital wellbeing and balance between their personal lives and their work.  

In line with our findings, the data shows that work profile users (81%) are more satisfied than non-work profile users (71%) with their experience of managing work and personal life on the same device. Work profile user satisfaction is driven by the peace of mind that their work data will be separate and secure, thus reducing the chances of making unwanted mistakes like sending a corporate or personal email from the wrong account.

When there is a distinct separation between work and personal apps, people are more conscious about their data and the boundaries they can and cannot cross. Work profile users are more aware than non-work profile users that the data linked to their work account can be seen by their company and more satisfied that their work data can be kept secure. For example, 63% of work profile users are aware that work app usage (data captured on work apps) is visible to IT,  compared to only 39% of non-work profile users who also use work apps on their phone.

Work-life balance under control 

Given the increasingly blurred boundaries between work and personal time, people find it difficult to fully disconnect from work after hours. As a result, survey respondents listed lack of work-life balance as the top frustration when using a single phone for work and personal use. 

One of the advantages of work profile is that users can switch their work apps and notifications off when they are not working, helping them take back control of their work-life balance. Our study shows that work profile users are significantly more satisfied with their work-life balance compared to non-work profile users (70% vs. 63%). 

For more information about how you and your employees can take advantage of the work profile, visit our website. 

As many companies integrate return to the office plans with existing work-from-home strategies, a key component is building a device management and security strategy centered on remote access. In this era of hybrid work,  mobility is the critical link for workers who need the ability to connect to company resources from anywhere. 

A recent Forrester report highlights why IT administrators should use on-device security and enterprise management features to build a powerful and adaptive security strategy, noting how remote access is now paramount for business continuity. Organizations can enable the multilayered protections and management features in Android Enterprise to help their teams thrive in this hybrid world, giving teams powerful built-in security without layers of complexity.

Security built in as a foundation

In its research, Forrester found that 78% of IT admins surveyed are planning to increase their use of on-device security in the next year. When it comes to anti-malware defense, securely configuring devices and managing mobile applications, Android offers enterprise-grade security solutions that meet the needs of today’s organizations. 

Forrester recommends that operating system platform security be the key foundation to a device security strategy. With Android Enterprise, organizations benefit from on-device protection that is built to help secure data, protect employee privacy and equip IT admins with a rich set of management features. The report calls out how Android makes use of the anti-malware protections in Google Play Protect to provide an ongoing defense against potentially harmful apps.  In doing so, an IT security team can rely heavily on such built-in features to achieve the security posture that businesses of all sizes require to defend against complex attacks. 

Our recently updated Android Enterprise Security Paper provides a comprehensive review of the hardware and software security features available in Android which can be trusted for accessing critical and sensitive information.

Security admins need, privacy employees require

Android provides a depth of security features that are built to provide automatic defenses against many layers of threats. Google Play Protect uses machine learning to adapt to changing security threats, providing organizations a built-in solution at no cost.

The Android work profile gives organizations flexibility to securely enroll personal devices and provide greater privacy on corporate-owned smartphones and tablets. In its report, Forrester notes Android comes with strong data isolation and protection features with the Android work profile. By separating personal and work apps on devices with distinct encryption keys for each profile, Android gives admins a built-in solution to provide employees with secure access that aligns to their work styles without sharing any access to data from personal apps on devices with IT.

Managed Google Play lets admins specify which public or internal apps can be installed in the work profile. The granular levels of security available to admins from Android Enterprise APIs and the built-in security through services like Google Play Protect serve as a strong foundation for mounting a robust threat defense. In addition, the SafetyNet Attestation API integrates with partner Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions to verify that devices have not been compromised. This now includes hardware-backed evaluations as an indicator of a stronger device integrity evaluation. 

No matter where your teams are working, you can have confidence in the platform and management security features found in Android Enterprise. Learn more about building an on-device strategy from the Forrester report, and go in-depth on integrating features with our security paper.

As many companies integrate return to the office plans with existing work-from-home strategies, a key component is building a device management and security strategy centered on remote access. In this era of hybrid work,  mobility is the critical link for workers who need the ability to connect to company resources from anywhere. 

A recent Forrester report highlights why IT administrators should use on-device security and enterprise management features to build a powerful and adaptive security strategy, noting how remote access is now paramount for business continuity. Organizations can enable the multilayered protections and management features in Android Enterprise to help their teams thrive in this hybrid world, giving teams powerful built-in security without layers of complexity.

Security built in as a foundation

In its research, Forrester found that 78% of IT admins surveyed are planning to increase their use of on-device security in the next year. When it comes to anti-malware defense, securely configuring devices and managing mobile applications, Android offers enterprise-grade security solutions that meet the needs of today’s organizations. 

Forrester recommends that operating system platform security be the key foundation to a device security strategy. With Android Enterprise, organizations benefit from on-device protection that is built to help secure data, protect employee privacy and equip IT admins with a rich set of management features. The report calls out how Android makes use of the anti-malware protections in Google Play Protect to provide an ongoing defense against potentially harmful apps.  In doing so, an IT security team can rely heavily on such built-in features to achieve the security posture that businesses of all sizes require to defend against complex attacks. 

Our recently updated Android Enterprise Security Paper provides a comprehensive review of the hardware and software security features available in Android which can be trusted for accessing critical and sensitive information.

Security admins need, privacy employees require

Android provides a depth of security features that are built to provide automatic defenses against many layers of threats. Google Play Protect uses machine learning to adapt to changing security threats, providing organizations a built-in solution at no cost.

The Android work profile gives organizations flexibility to securely enroll personal devices and provide greater privacy on corporate-owned smartphones and tablets. In its report, Forrester notes Android comes with strong data isolation and protection features with the Android work profile. By separating personal and work apps on devices with distinct encryption keys for each profile, Android gives admins a built-in solution to provide employees with secure access that aligns to their work styles without sharing any access to data from personal apps on devices with IT.

Managed Google Play lets admins specify which public or internal apps can be installed in the work profile. The granular levels of security available to admins from Android Enterprise APIs and the built-in security through services like Google Play Protect serve as a strong foundation for mounting a robust threat defense. In addition, the SafetyNet Attestation API integrates with partner Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions to verify that devices have not been compromised. This now includes hardware-backed evaluations as an indicator of a stronger device integrity evaluation. 

No matter where your teams are working, you can have confidence in the platform and management security features found in Android Enterprise. Learn more about building an on-device strategy from the Forrester report, and go in-depth on integrating features with our security paper.