Your company’s confidential documents are being copied. Your biggest competitor has learned your trade secrets. Photographs of one of your supervisors disciplining an employee are appearing on a union organizing website. And, to make matters worse, a sexual harassment charge has just been filed against your company.
Boo! Now, good grief! I'm even getting a tick from reading that. Now, I'm not necessarily saying that you shouldn't have a camera phone policy. But, I think that each of those threats would be covered by a well-drafted policy manual that doesn't list each and every possibility. You run the risk of listing so many things that the list looks exhaustive. And then when the next gizmo comes along, everyone thinks, hey, it's not on the list!
What if people don't know they're not supposed to do those things without explicit mention of the phone? Same problem. They won't make that connection with the next gizmo. Focus on the behavior that's the problem, not every instrumentality of it. Keep sensitive documents secure. Keep meetings confidential if they are sensitive, and make sure you strictly enforce your sexual harassment policies. After all, do you really want an employee to say, "but I didn't take that picture of her butt with my camera phone! It was my camera!"
