Can an Android phone be locked down such that nothing can be installed on the phone?

[milesuy]

My employer is planning to purchase 10 Android phones for a department. He wants to make sure the phone would only be used for work.

The phones would only need some messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, and access to cellular calls & SMS.

• Can an Android phone be locked down such that nothing can be installed on the phone? An exeption would be updates.
• Can an Android phone be account locked, such that an employee can't put their personal accounts on the phone?
• Is there an app or a built-in solution that can lockdown the phone for free?

I tried Googleing for solutions, but I keep seeing paid ones.

 

There's also the option of just enabling cellular calls and SMS on the phone, basically turning it into a dumb phone, if this is possible or easier to implement.

 

*The reason why he's purchasing Android phones is because our mobile network operator only works with smartphones. We tried purchasing feature (dumb) phones, but they don't work at all on the network.

[manikyath]

19 minutes ago, milesuy said:

My employer

19 minutes ago, milesuy said:

for free

your employer is a cheapskate.

 

the way to manage this is either trough google workspace ($5/user/month), or if you're in microsft365 akready, trough endpoint manager which is included with M365 F3 or higher.