&gt; Sure they can... If those policies and rules are arbitrary, illogical, and backwards<p>Don&#x27;t abuse company owned equipment, and don&#x27;t use company owned equipment for personal reasons (especially during work hours) is certainly not an &quot;arbitrary, illogical and backwards&quot; policy.<p>&gt; Also less effective<p>If you truly believe an IT department ensuring their systems are maintained properly and function as they should is &quot;less effective&quot; than just allowing chaos... I&#x27;m not sure what to say really.<p>&gt; Shadow IT exists for a reason<p>Have you worked at a company which had different departments all using whatever they wanted? It&#x27;s a nightmare, and not just from an IT perspective. Nothing is compatible with each other... transferring from one department to another results in a slew of new applications and practices to learn (and which are not necessarily better)... and when IT does need to step in and fix this new system a bunch of non-IT department staff cobbled together... it gets even worse. Soon these departments complain to the IT department when their &quot;shadow IT&quot; system breaks down and demand it be fixed promptly. It&#x27;s not a net good for any company.<p>&gt; Nobody follows all the rules all the time, and those that do are generally seen by the rest of society as stodgy and inflexible<p>Don&#x27;t be ridiculous. It&#x27;s not your property - you don&#x27;t get to do whatever you want with it. It&#x27;s really, really simple.