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Winning the Consumer Gadget Wars

CSOs will need smart policies, good awareness programs and judicious enforcement to manage risks presented by USB drives, camera phones and other consumer gadgets

That said, camera phones are particularly challenging to contain because they're not connected to any platform that the company controls. Gladura says that a "no cameras" policy and an ongoing awareness campaign that conscripts employees into the security ranks works best. "I'd rather have 55,000 sets of eyes out there than just my department," he notes. But even that is not enough. His department also has enacted other policies that help to keep cameras out of sensitive areas. For example, employees at the distribution facilities are discouraged from taking lunch in the parking lotâ¬to allow security to better discern if other, unauthorized individuals are sitting in the lot to observe loading dock operations. The doors that cover employee lockers are grated, offering security personnel a view of the contents. And random security searches are not unheard of.

At Tommy Hilfiger USA, camera phones pose a different kind of threat: the potential loss of intellectual property. David Jones, vice president of corporate loss prevention and security, worries about visitors who enter the company's design studios. "For anyone in our business, the design patents are the innovations that the company lives off of," says Jones. A covertly snapped picture of a dress for the new fall line that is e-mailed to a competitor represents a real loss.

Jones also relies on a no-camera policy to protect the design areas, but he worries about the increasing prevalence of camera phones and their shrinking forms. His fears are well-founded. According to InfoTrends/Cap Ventures, research suggests that by 2009, 89 percent of all new mobile phone handsets will include a camera. And the technology is advancing so quickly that it is harder and harder to tell which cell phones can take snapshots. "On older phones you could tell if there was a camera; now you can hardly tell, so we have a policy that we can't really enforce beyond awareness and training," Jones says. He adds that to his knowledge a theft by camera phone has not yet occurred, "but the threat is always there for it to happen."

CSOs also need to worry about protecting their employees' privacy when camera phones are around. One security executive, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation, recounted a case where employees using the company's shower facilities after lunchtime workouts became concerned about a man who always seemed to be talking on his cell phone in the changing area. Public locker rooms and gyms frequently have "no cell phone" rules, and locker rooms provided by an employer should be no different.