To go abroad when working from home?

[StreakOfTheWeek]

If I went to Italy or France or Spain or wherever... and logged in and did my work - would this be wrong?
I work 8-2 Mon - Thurs normally
Never have to go into office, except for 4 meetings a year.

And I would work as usual, and thought I could then spend the afternoons exploring and taking it all in.

There's nothing wrong with my idea, is there??

My company allows this but we need to let ICT know as our VPN is set to Ireland and you cannot access any systems from outside Ireland

But some people have head off "home" for a couple months - no issues but we are in the EU

Why are you asking randoms on a chat site instead of your employer?

Just ask them.

My work are fine with it as long as it’s no more than a week at a time and not to a restricted country. You have to ask your line manager for permission first though.

Surely your contract will mention this? If not asking won’t hurt.

Corporate VPNs are not generally restricted (although I can't comment on Myanmar) and most definitely are not 'completely illegal' in China and Turkey!

Using a VPN to access services or sites the government hasn't approved is often illegal. And sometimes governments will restrict access to certain VPN providers. It's not something that would normally be an issue for corporate VPN usage.

That said VPNs don't get around the data protection, tax or (depending on what is stored directly on your laptop) cybercrime risk. Actually not that long ago my company had France specifically on the list of high risk countries for cybercrimes and wouldn't allow you to take a company lap top there unless there was no confidential information on the hard drive.

We have a work from anywhere x days a year policy - there are specific countries it applies to (where the tax risk and data protection has been assessed) and you can only work from a country if you are allowed to under that country's immigration laws.

There are also countries where I'm not even allowed to bring my work phone with me because of security concerns.

We can apply for this at my work but for an eu country it will only be granted if you have the right to work in the eu.

we can’t do it without the authorisation. My company has found out about people doing it without authorisation in the past as when they have called them the dialing tone has been for abroad.

I’d get sacked for that in my organisation because of the tax implications (someone else was). Check with HR

I have done it and it was fine but I did tell my employer.
How good are their IT department as a good IT department will know if you are connecting via foreign networks.
The issues for employers are usually around tax, liability insurance, security and employment law.

Absolutely specifically banned in the company I work for.

You should discuss it with your employer first.

The reason being it can cause huge legal and tax implications for the employer if they are caught employing someone in another country, particularly one where they don’t have an employing entity. There are very specific rules in place that apply and it varies by country.

There are certain thresholds that apply, again your employer can only explore this if you communicate with them.

If you believe that you will still be able to fully carry out your role from the foreign location, and have the appropriate home working set up there - then there is no reason not to have the conversation. If you’re hoping to just wiggle your mouse and chill by the pool, I can see why that would be a conversation you’d want to avoid.

I'm jobhunting at the moment and most of the job postings state 'this work must be carried out from the UK'. I'm public sector though so I don't know if it would differ in private sector...

As others say there are two issues; your employer's attitude and the laws in the country you are visiting.

My employer won't allow it for IT security reasons.

I don't think a handful of days in an EU country remote working for your UK employer would be a problem.

Would my father have needed anything more than his passport to go to France to meet and work with his company's French suppliers?

Actually it would have been the same if she'd wanted to do as you suggest - all the data sharing agreements would still have to be checked, even if just for one day! (some of our data can't be accessed outwith the UK, others not outwith Europe etc - but with certain countries excepted. It's complicated). For us it's the type of work/data that's important rather than the length of time.

Absolutely fine to do this where I work. It’s particularly useful for those who want to go “home” for Christmas or other holidays.

Nobody on here can tell you whether or not it’s a problem where you work though OP.

That isn't the point. It's whether your employer allows it. It depends on whether you're going to ask permission or whether you're simply trying to wangle some extra days in a nicer climate by not telling them.

I work for a government arm's-length organisation. There is a short list of countries we can work from outside UK. The conditions are that we have line manager permission (good reasons might include caring for a sick relative, it's not encouraged for holidays); that we are abroad with equipment for less than 2 weeks; we arrange with IT the exact uk times and dates that we will be working and that they approve this before we go. The last colleague I know who did this, it took a month for approval. We also have to say that we will not be in charge of primary school aged children - this is a rule for WFH anywhere though.

Your employer is on dodgy ground here, unless they're paying social contributions to the Spanish tax authorities (unlikely) and your colleague has a visa that allows him to work.

So many British employers allowing employees to work (illegally) from abroad without considering tax implications, data protection, employer liability, health and safety, etc.

I have a friend that does this. He goes to a ski resort twice a year for a month at time. His work gets done and he then goes on to the slopes. As he says, its no different from working at home and then going to pub or whatever when he is done.

We can work from outside the UK for 4 weeks a year. We.just get sign off from our line manager before we book anything. I'd ask first to be safe.

The people saying "just do it, they won't notice" are being ridiculous.

If OP does just go ahead without asking her employer, it's quite possible that the first OP will know of any problem is when they sit down and try to get on a network. If there is any sort of geolocation or network type restriction on their systems, someone will be getting a security alert - regardless of whether OP finds they can't actually get logged in anyway.

How would OP backtrack that one when the boss calls and says, "What the hell are you doing in Spain/Nicaragua/wherever?"

juice jacking is a big threat

At the risk of taking the thread off the rails a bit: There's a good general interest explanation here of why "juice jacking" is not, in fact, a problem that anybody needs to worry about in the real world.

And that's over a USB cable. Wireless charging pads are even less of a threat because there is nothing in the wireless charging circuitry that connects to anything in the phone's data, other than the battery status indicator. So it's literally impossible to hack into your phone that way.

Obviously if it's company policy not to take your phone outside the country then you don't do it, but cybersecurity consultants by and large do not make a lot money by giving fully objective accounts of the actual risks or saying "You don't really need to worry about that". Theft and loss of the device remain vastly more plausible threats, but it's hard to charge £2,850 per day plus VAT to tell people that.

You are making a lot of assumptions here.

The employer and the employee most likely have all that covered.

Our employers liability policy excludes workers overseas as we are a UK company. If you work for a global company presumably they would have this cover already.
Your home WIFI is under your control. With Hotel or Airbnb WIFI, a third party has access to it as well and therefore the network you are working on is not secure.

I would if I could! Unfortunately, I have to work from a desktop provided by work, and the VPN only works in the UK. 😒

I wouldn’t assume a UK company is going to have everything covered…

the reality is that if you quietly WFH in a gite/rental etc, and don’t broadcast it to the locals you’ll probably be OK for a few weeks only but there are factors you can fall foul of.

I can’t vouch for the complete accuracy of the below but it’s from a Brits in France website and is worth consideration:

“Can I work remotely in France, for a UK company?

Yes, but it’s complicated.

• You must have the right to work in France – e.g. you are an EU passport or UK WARP (Withdrawal Agreement Resident Permit) card holder.
• While tax is fairly straightforward, differences in social security and employment law are more complex and must be understood.
• Your employer will need to register in France and comply with French employment law, pay all charges here and collect or hand over the employee costs. In the first instance, there is a government service called TFE that runs a free payroll service for small foreign employers. Some companies may find the costs and extra admin (such as providing you with compulsory top-up health insurance) off-putting. Alternatively, you can use an umbrella company, which can act as your employer.”

Another issue for the OP to maybe consider is the 90-180…caps what is possible anyway.

www.completefrance.com/living-in-france/can-i-work-remotely-in-france-for-a-uk-company/

My contract is remote, not home, so I can do (and have done) this.

We access the companies systems via vpn on dedicated laptops.