Research firm Gartner predicted last year that by 2017, half of all employers will stop providing mobile hardware to workers and will require workers to use their own devices for work.
But, as The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this year, the trend comes with a troubling consequence: employers can remotely erase data off those devices, and they are not required to make a distinction between personal and professional information. Workers at a variety of companies report losing their lists of contacts and photos of deceased relatives and pets.