In a globally distributed company, sensitive information can move through places and tools that were never designed around company privacy policies. Conversations you’d want held in reserved conference rooms can happen in spare bedrooms, co-working spaces or in coffee shops. While no one may have ever intended to create risk, the inevitability is that they do.

A lot of that risk isn’t even connected to misconduct. It’s just people looking for convenience, speed and small shortcuts. Remote and hybrid work extends all of those risks to new devices, conversations, networks, vendor tools, personal accounts, access points, and now, AI systems.

Leadership teams need to answer one question plainly: Do company privacy practices match how people work every day?

The network perimeter is gone for data privacy

The old office model gave companies a lot more control. Everything existed in a physical and digital container that had clearer points of entry and exit.

But today’s distributed work tore the roof off, knocked out the windows and doors, and lit the network containers on fire.

Home Wi-Fi, public networks, co-working spaces and personal devices can now function as part of the company’s environment. And the concerns around that are growing, especially as the federal government points to popular consumer networking equipment as a national security risk.

Founders and HR executives need to get ahead of that exposure by first defining what sensitive work is, where it can happen and whose devices can access company systems. It’s also worth noting that there are plenty of ready-made templates for companies to adopt. The process of doing so is a lot easier when done earlier.

Physical space as a privacy control

Data privacy standards can fail without a breach, hack or malicious employee.

A visible screen can expose compensation details. A Slack notification can reveal an internal investigation. A printed document can sit in a home office tray or make its way into a kid’s art project. A sensitive call can carry through a co-working booth wall.

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