I use a wifi (employer-controlled) while at work. Can my employer see what I am looking at on my personal device? Does a VPN prevent this?

Yes, an employer can monitor their internal internet traffic for everyone connected. What is your employers policy on employee use of their internet? Most who do monitor traffic tell their employees that policy when hired. If they are monitoring traffic, they also will likely block any use of a third party VPN on their network.

Your employer can log every internet request made by your device while connected to their network. They may not be able to see the content of the web pages, etc. that you're looking at, provided the connections are secure, but they can see what web sites you're going to, etc. If this presents an issue for you as far as privacy is concerned, then I suggest you do NOT use your employers WiFi network for personal use.

Your employer owns the network and has every right to monitor what goes on on their network.

If they can or they can't they might question why you need to use a VPN at work on their wi-fi.

Whatever the company policy is stated to be is what you should be doing. If the company allows you to use 3rd party VPN I would be more concerned the 3rd party VPN is not intercepting your data by telling you it's safe with them. If the company is not blocking 3rd party VPN then don't assume you can use it, your company may not block sites that facilitate download copyrighted or inappropriate material, it's your responsibility to do what the policy asks.

Can they see what you are doing?

There is no guarantee that they can't.

Bottom line is I would ask your HR or IT people what the company policy is on use of the work internet. Your job is presumably not worth jeopardizing by guessing what you can or cannot get away with. Companies that openly monitor employee internet use are usually far less forgiving of transgressions than companies with an open use policy.

I know of at least one company in my area where any non-work related use of the company internet is cause for dismissal. They do give out that policy to each new hire in writing though, and the employee have to sign that they have received, read and understood it.

newbie1971 wrote:

OK. Understood. But if they are allowing a third-party VPN, can they see what webpages or documents I am looking at or transmitting?

Simple answer is no, unless they've got intelligence agency level stuff to crack it. I personally run Adblock Mobile, and that should be enough - at least for stuff going through Safari. I do get video (with ad content) blocked on the ESPN app, so it may also work with some apps even though there is discussion about App approval when it bypasses more than just Safari.

As for using it, I've worked at places where employees were allowed to connect personal devices to company WiFi only through a guest network with a password. The implied use was that it was going to be used for personal stuff, but that we should limit the time. It was also bandwidth limited to reduce the stress on the company network, so it could get really slow. Although you've been told stuff about that, I'd assume you know what you can and can't do with it.

It may also be that the company is fine with personal use as long as it doesn’t interfere with or impede getting work done. All the OP needs to do is find out just what the policy is.

My current employer has a completely open policy on use of work wifi (well, nothing illegal obviously). We can connect personal devices to both the internal and guest networks and nobody is monitoring anything. As long as you’re getting your work done, on time, and well, there is no issue with personal use. Our hardware firewall does block any internal VPN connections to the outside world, and only allows our own VPN in from outside. It also blocks some known malicious IPs.

But companies vary so much it’s always best to be honest and just ask. If a company doesn’t have a policy on internet use, maybe the very question will make them realize they should have one and everybody should know it. Even if that policy is to do as you please, it should be explicit and made known to all employees. I mean, in an ideal world, the OP should really not have had to ask their question as their employer should have made it clear what was allowed and not allowed, and what they were, or were not doing about monitoring people’s internet traffic. Employees shouldn’t have to wonder about that.

Michael Black wrote:

... the OP should really not have had to ask their question as their employer should have made it clear what was allowed and not allowed, and what they were, or were not doing about monitoring people’s internet traffic. Employees shouldn’t have to wonder about that.

in any place of business I've ever worked the unspoken policy is "if you have to ask, the answer is 'no'."

Where I work, they don't care as long as:

1. It's not illegal.

2. You aren't downloading treasure troves of data.

3. You are getting work done.

This goes for the workstations, WiFi and your personal computer should you bring it along. When we asked, that's what we were told.

😁 Very true, but not necessarily optimal for a workplace - for either employer or employee.