Former Uber Technologies Inc. CEO Travis Kalanick indicated recently that the company may allow personal laptops at work. One device that potentially made it inside Uber's campus came from self-driving car engineer Anthony Levandowski, whose digital files are currently at the center of Uber's dispute over driverless car technology with Alphabet Inc. subsidiary Waymo.

Uber is not the first and it certainly won't be the last company to have personal devices in the office. It's a growing trend that's all but impossible to fight, according to in-house lawyers, making it all the more important to protect against the risks.

Kalanick's revelation came in a July 27 deposition, released earlier this month in the company's lawsuit with Waymo. Asked whether he knew that Levandowski took a personal laptop to work, Kalanick said he was not aware of this because he's “not in the weeds of that kind of stuff.” The ex-CEO went on to say he doesn't believe it's prohibited to bring personal laptops to work—”maybe it happens with some employees”—but it's not “a normal thing.”