Think twice

The majority of data breaches are a result of human error, misdirecting an email for example, but the University could be fined up to £500,000 by the Information Commissioner for such breaches.
Think twice before...Questions to ask yourself
  • Think twice before emailing
  • Does the information constitute personal data or restricted University data?
  • Could the information be shared by other means (e.g. shared file space)?
  • If not, should the information be encrypted before sending?
  • Have you double checked you are sending to the correct person?
  • Think twice before storing personal or restricted data on a laptop or mobile device
  • Does the information need to be stored on laptop/mobile device at all?
  • Could the information be accessed via the Staff Remote Desktop?
  • Could the information be shared via other means (e.g. shared file space)?
  • Is the mobile device owned and approved by the University?
  • Does the device have full disk encryption?
  • Could any personal data be anonymised before upload?
If you are unsure of some of the answers to the above questions, see some of the pages linked to below - and make sure that you are familiar with the 'University data and you' section of this website.
Data-related issueFind out more
  • Do you know what the University's data classifications are?
  • Do you know how to encrypt a document?
  • Do you know how easy it is to encrypt a document in Office 2007/2010?
  • Do you have an up-to-date version of Office and other software?
  • Did you know that you can contact the IT Services Service Desk for advice?
  • Do you know how to access the Staff Remote Desktop for offsite working?
For further information on data security or to report a suspected data breach, please contact either Data-protection@bristol.ac.uk (for data protection issues) or Cert@bristol.ac.uk (for information security issues). Get a copy of the Keep IT Safe Think Twice poster (right-click on the image, when it opens, to save the file).