Who’s really looking over your shoulder? Research reveals the riskiest places to do business

IT MAY be nice to sit in a cafe with your laptop to get some work done, but is it safe? New research reveals the riskiest public places to do business.

Hands typing on laptop keyboard.

IT MAY be nice to sit in a cafe with your laptop to get some work done, but is it safe? New research reveals the riskiest public places to do business.

A study by mobile workplace provider Regus has found cafes are where business secrets are at greatest risk.

According to the research, 67 per cent of Australian businesses named cafes as the place where the privacy of documents and conversations are at most danger.

Airplanes were second (52 per cent), followed by airline business lounges (50 per cent), hotel bars and lounges (46 per cent) and trains (37 per cent).

Mobile phone conversations were cited as the biggest risk to privacy, with 78 per cent of respondents saying they carried the greatest risk of exposing confidential business information.

That was followed by printed documents that can be read over your shoulder (62 per cent) and open laptop screens (59 per cent).

Regus Australia and New Zealand chief executive Paul Migliorini told news.com.au the advent of cloud computing and mobile internet had made working ‘on the move’ more common, but it carried unintended risks.

Mr Migliorini said by taking a sensitive client call in public, going through important documents at a cafe or crunching numbers on a busy flight, employees could unintentionally be putting their company at risk.

“All of these things are driving a very different style of working, but I don’t think the right solutions have been implemented yet to enable people to work flexibly,” he said.

Originally published as Who’s really looking over your shoulder? Research reveals the riskiest places to do business