Building Trust With Each Other
Respecting Flex Assets
Flex assets are a key part of how we create great products that improve people’s lives.
To innovate responsibly, we must protect those assets. Flex assets come in three main types.
This includes patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, know-how and any other intangible personal property. We must also respect the IP rights of third parties, including customers and business partners. We can only use third-party IP with permission and can only use properly approved and licensed software. We are never allowed to use third-party IP without permission and licenses obtained through Flex IT.
- Our physical assets include facilities, computers and phones. We are expected to take all measures to protect these assets from theft, destruction and misuse. We must keep our laptops and other devices secure at all times and promptly report their loss or theft.
- These assets also include customer assets, such as prototypes, which are a physical manifestation of a customer’s innovation or concept, a model used to test the customer concept or a process for verifying key functional aspects of an intended design.
Our technology includes our software and communications systems. We must follow all procedures to keep our systems secure against data breaches or other cybersecurity incidents. The sharing of user IDs and passwords is strictly prohibited, and we must be careful when connecting to unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks, downloading software or accessing links.
Appropriate asset use
We use Flex assets to pursue our mission. We do not use them to download, store or send explicit, offensive or discriminatory material. To the extent allowed by law, Flex may access, search and review any communications, data or equipment, with or without our consent.
Handling a data breach
If we suspect any unauthorized access or breach of company systems, we follow the Data Breach Policy and immediately report the incident to dataprotection@flex.com.
Ask yourself
We recently had an outside IT consultant visit our work site to help us update our computer systems. He told me he was helping us by providing some “extra goodies” as part of his service. At first I was appreciative, but then I realized that he was adding unlicensed software to my computer. Is this standard practice?
No. Regardless of his motivation, the IT consultant was acting against Flex policy, and the law. We never use unlicensed software. Report the matter to your manager immediately. The unlicensed software should be removed from all company devices, and the IT consultant’s employer should be informed of the violation. In addition, software downloads that are advertised as free or evaluation software are only deemed “free” for students, or small businesses, and not large enterprise companies like Flex. Software should only be added with permission of Flex IT.