You aren't required to have any phone. If you have a phone and want it to have access to corp resources, you need to agree to some conditions.

I have coworkers who choose to keep their phone personal only, and others who choose to have the company pay for them to have a separate work phone.

(Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself)

I did that. I had a company laptop and phone. I usually left them at the office.

For extra privacy, I stopped my personal phone from connecting to the company WiFi. Then Google bought my home ISP (WebPass). Now I use a router-based VPN.

> For extra privacy, I stopped my personal phone from connecting to the company WiFi.

In a large enough campus, wouldn't the company also operate the cell tower? (I feel like I should know this, but I don't.)

> Now I use a router-based VPN.

This is not really useful except as a way to make your internet really slow. VPN providers are a lot less trustworthy than ISPs, that's why they can afford all those podcast ads.

I use a VPN provider [0] located in my state. They claim not to spy and I believe them. My state (California) which has some privacy laws and consumer protection functions which would make things very difficult for the VPN provider if they were caught spying. I picked this VPN provider because they finance WireGuard development.

AT&T, Verizon, and other ISPs spy and sell the data they collect. They also spend large amounts of money influencing lawmakers to keep spying allowed.

[0] https://www.privateinternetaccess.com

Isn't laptop enough? What the phone does?

Some things I use corporate access on my phone for:

* Receiving pages when on call

* Team chat notifications

* Meetings while walking around the neighborhood

* Filing android bug reports

* Testing unreleased software

Google probably has their corporate app for iOS too.

Just have a phone with an obscure OS and escape all compatibility with their corporate crap. They should provide you with a phone if they want you to install their corporate app.

So, as a Google employee, they do. If you don't want to run corp software, you can easily just request a corporate phone and that's that.

It is unfortunate (and a reflection of the power imbalance in US employment) that Google doesn't simply offer a corporate phone as a matter of practice - it benefits both the employee and the employer in the long run (with dishonest actions put aside).

It does (as do other companies). It's part of the onboarding, along with what kind of desktop, laptop, etc. You can decline the phone and use your own (with the software installed). Many people choose to do this out of convenience.

I expect the employers would actually prefer to just give everyone a phone the companies owns. They are doing the work profile on a personal device because many workers strongly prefer that.

Yeah seriously. The company I work for doesn't allow corporate stuff on personal phones, but they do give them to everyone who asks for them. It's pretty nice, you get a choice of android or iOS phone and they just ship new ones out directly from AT&T.

What would suck is if you're not allowed to bring your personal phone at all on campus. Then if you have to reach family you have to do it from your work phone.

Google lets employees request a corporate phone if they want one. It just doesn’t provide one by default, because many employees do not want or need them.

I have always been able to get a phone when working at Google by just asking for it and pointing out that I occasionally answer questions or help debug big problems outside of work hours.

It's nice not having a corporate phone. Nobody can message you during off-hours without taking the extreme step of calling you at your personal number (which in the modern day is basically unthinkable).

Some people don't like carrying two phones.

Those people aren't barred from suffering from invasions of privacy and rootkits for the sake of a minor convenience.

Most places outside of tech folks with tolls need to carry company tools where they go - doctors carrying hospital beepers was essentially a meme in the 90's.

I am just explaining why they don't just give everyone a phone right away.... my company asks you if you want a work phone or to use your personal phone and get a stipend

Companies have the ability to make this option accessible or obscure, given the anecdote it sounds a lot like google was going out of their way to make it obscure and I'd suspect it was done for dishonest reasons.

I think it's fine to choose to use a personal device, but employee education around personal devices is very poor - no one sits you down and goes through your rights as a worker and companies benefit by keeping those rights obscure.

You can accept the risk if it's worth it for you and that's fine - but a lot of people aren't aware of the risks and their employer certainly won't tell them.

Are you saying they should be barred?

Not at all - I'm saying it's an option. In the US right now you surrender a lot of rights on devices you use to produce to transmit employer information (depending on contracts) but that employer right has been upheld. You should never work on a personal device and if you do there are very real costs associated with it.