The office should be a safe space in which everyone is on the same team. But people are people before they are colleagues and this means that you should never leave a valuable object on your desk unsupervised. At the very least, if it goes missing there will be a lot of talk and controversy surrounding the event, which is never good for business. Furthermore, you don’t know what kind of visitors might be coming to the office during your lunch break. What is important here is that you always make sure your files and the company’s sensitive data are protected. Here are a few things that you can do about that.
Keep important files online
If someone snoops through your computer’s files they might find sensitive information which should never be divulged. In that regard it would be a good idea to keep a portion of your work online so that tone half is useless without the other. There are many platforms on which you can upload your work so no curious individual will be reading your documents any time soon.
Place things strategically
Learn to keep a track of little signs and hints that tell you when someone has been rummaging through your stuff. For example, leaving something on the desk in a precise position might tell you if someone has moved it while you were gone. This like that can be very helpful in determining if someone is indeed trying to get access to your computer while you go for lunch or a meeting.
Ask your trusty office friend to keep a lookout
It’s understandable if you don’t trust anyone at the office, but maybe you have an office friend that you do trust. You could ask them to keep an eye out for any shady activities while you’re away. Surely they would be happy to report once you return. If nothing else, it would at least give you an excuse for some office gossip, if you’re into that kind of thing.
Leave the camera on
This might be seen as a little extreme but if your computer or laptop has a web camera attached, you could leave it on. This will make it so anything that goes on while you’re away will be recorded. There’s nothing more truthful than imagery. And unless whoever might be trying to spy on your pulls off an actual spy move and replaces the video footage with a fake, you will be able to tell who they are.
The best scenario in this case would be to work in an environment where you can trust everyone, but if that’s not an option at the moment you should consider trying out these ways in which you can keep your information safe from prying eyes.
