Another problem with remote wiping a mobile BYOD is that the employee will lose personal data, too, right? That's why lost or stolen devices aren't reported to the IT department right away.

Mensel: I don't necessarily agree with that, at least the part about not wanting their personal stuff wiped. We could take all 40-something personal mobile devices that my engineering team owns and throw them into a pit of lava. I don't think we'd lose a shred of essential data.

Sure, there would be some inconvenience. We'd have to buy new phones, punch passwords back into them, and synch them up with our iTunes libraries. But smartphones and tablets allow you to view and interact with data that lives elsewhere.

If people are keeping personal data on their smart devices, and that's the only place where the data lives, then they're not using the device properly.

I've heard about some companies having BYOD user policies that forbid employees from using iCloud.