Woman Refuses to use iPhone 15 Offered by Employer as Both Personal and Work Phone; Here's Why

Providing laptops and phones to employees is standard practice at most corporate and tech firms, but turns out some companies may use them as tools for spying on their employees. Shedding light on this tactic, TikToker @ashley.houghton posted a video highlighting how companies are offering latest devices to employees so that they might use the same phone for personal and professional purposes. Her video, which now has 1.6 million views, had an overlay text that warned, "Your company is spying on you" and she started by claiming that her company is offering an iPhone 15 as her work phone. They asked Ashley to use the same handset as her work and personal phone, to which she answered, "Absolutely not. I will have the iPhone 15 to be the work phone, and I just won’t use it for my personal use, and that was totally OK with me."

Listening to this, the IT guy put her in a spot saying, "Oh that’s really strange. It's only you and one other person who doesn't want that option." Ashley further went on and explained in her video, "That is so weird to me, to have your work phone and your personal phone be completely meshed together as if they’re not already spying on you through your computer and knowing when you’re active and things like that." She wanted to keep her personal texts, photos, and social media separate, just for herself on a different phone. Viewers thought her decision followed by her advice on keeping both phones separate made sense. 

@kaylee14101 commented, "IT can see everything you do on a company-owned device. *Everything*." @Nursebenji recalled, "Mine offered a monthly stipend to use my personal phone for work or they would provide a separate work phone. I went for separate. Best decision ever." @Taylor agreed saying, "Beyond tracking what is done on the phone, if you/your company ever gets subpoenaed they can take everything off the phone and it be used in court as it’s company property." @mitchdotcom expressed further concerns adding, "It’s not just tracking, but the fact that you could get let go tomorrow and lose all your personal stuff." 

@Anna commented, "Even privacy aside I don’t want work communications constantly streaming in along with my personal stuff 24/7 like where’s the work/life balance." @Devie Bunting mentioned, "My husband has a work phone seperate from his personal because when he's off, it's off." @Esther commented, "For real. My kids' teachers are always so shocked when I'm like, no we're not allowing the school Chromebooks to connect to our personal network." @Nancy said, "When I was in my early twenties, me and my coworkers were clowning on our boss in the teams chat, the messages were literally going straight to her."

Many others shared how they also refused to compromise their privacy and urged others to do the same. Once an employee agrees to this, the employer gets the opportunity to sneak into their personal messages and track work, which creates privacy concerns.

Follow Ashley (@ashley.houghton) for more corporate life videos.