LinkedIn’s new “Intro” iOS app directs all e-mail sent or received on an iOS device through LinkedIn’s servers.
Yes, you’ve got that right.
Even so-called “secure” e-mail.
Even corporate e-mail.
Has LinkedIn been acquired by the NSA? Sorry, bad joke, poor taste – but I couldn’t resist. It crossed my mind.
BYOD implications
So what’s this to do with BYOD?
Many organizations are still sitting on the sidelines with regards to BYOD. They are passively permitting their employees to use iOS devices (and Androids, Windows phones too) to send and receive corporate e-mail, mostly on unmanaged, personally owned devices. This means that organizations that presently permit their employees to send and receive e-mail using personally owned iOS devices are at risk of all of that e-mail to be read (and retained) by LinkedIn, by every employee that downloads and installs the LinkedIn “Intro” app.
LinkedIn talks about this as “doing the impossible.” I’d prefer to call it “doing the unthinkable.”
Organizations without MDM (mobile device management) are powerless in preventing this, for the most part.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
This move by LinkedIn may finally get a lot of organizations off the fence in terms of BYOD, but employees might not be happy. Organizations’ legal departments are going to be having aneurisms right and left when they learn about this, and they may insist that corporate IT establish immediate control over personally owned mobile devices to block the LinkedIn Intro app.
Corporate legal departments usually get their way on important legal matters. This is one of those situations. When Legal realizes that LinkedIn Intro could destroy attorney-client privilege, Legal may march straight to the CIO and demand immediate cessation. That is, once you peel the Legal team off the ceiling.
Nothing like a crisis and reckless abandon by a formerly trusted service provider to get people moving.
This article does a good job of explaining the evils of LinkedIn Intro.
My respect for LinkedIn could not be at a lower point if they publicly admitted that they were sending your content to the government.
Peter H. Gregory 