EVER FIND YOURSELF attending a videoconference on your work laptop while using your personal phone to reply to work emails and text your family? Probably sounds like a standard workday to many.

We don’t often consider the legal entanglements of this scenario. The collapse of barriers between home and office has implications for the use of personal devices — our smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops. Conventional wisdom suggests you use school district-owned devices for work communications and the devices you own for personal communications. But what if you get your wires crossed?

Ask yourself a few questions to untangle those lines.

»Who owns the device or service? A district may provide an employee with a device primarily for “noncompensatory business purposes” if there are substantial business reasons for providing the device. Examples include the need to communicate when the employee is out of the office and the need to communicate outside of business hours.

»Is personal use of a district device allowed? Most districts recognize that employees are likely to make at least some personal use of the district’s electronic resources. That could include uses as minimal as receiving a personal communication that the employee then forwards to a private account or logging into the district’s Wi-Fi from a personal device.

That said, personal use must not impose a tangible cost on the district or unduly burden district technology resources. Nor should government property be used for private commercial purposes.

»Will you be taxed for personal usage? Communications equipment, such as a laptop and Internet service, is considered a taxable fringe benefit under the Internal Revenue Code. So absent an exception, employees would have to pay income tax on the fair market value of their personal use of district technology equipment and services.

However, the de minimis fringe exception provides a safe harbor for personal use that is so small as to make accounting for it unreasonable. For example, an occasional phone call or e-mail on school equipment will not be taxable income to an employee.

»If you use a personal device for school business, can you receive an allowance or reimbursement? Yes, in accordance with school district policy. But again, consider the tax consequences. A cash payment to an employee as an allowance or reimbursement is taxable unless the employee is required to document that the employee incurred a cost that benefited the district. Documentation may be possible for cell phone usage for calls or texting, but when it comes to personal internet service, separating personal use and business use is difficult.

»Did you sign an AUP? You probably signed an acceptable use policy, or AUP, for use of district technology. This policy applies when you’re on a district device, but you may not consider how the policy applies to your use of personal devices. The policies are typically broad enough to cover the use of district internet services and servers. So if you are accessing district email from your personal device or using district Wi-Fi, you remain under the umbrella of the AUP.

»Are messages on your private device subject to open records laws? State laws may differ, but in most jurisdictions, originating, transmitting or receiving the communication on a personal device would not (in and of itself) change the character of the record from public to private. In other words, using a personal device for public business typically will not shield the communications from open record requirements.

»If you are using your personal cell phone for school business, should you worry about the security of data on the phone? Yes, confidential communications and any confidential school district data stored or transmitted on personal cell phones or other mobile devices need to be protected just as diligently as records stored in school district offices. Consider using password protection or multifactor authentication on mobile devices that transmit school data. If a breach of sensitive personal data is suspected, make a prompt report to the school district.

JOY BASKIN is director of legal services with the Texas Association of School Boards in Austin, Texas.