ACCOUNTABILITY:
This policy applies to all employees and contracted employees of Meredith College.

POLICY STATEMENT:
It is the policy of Meredith College to protect assets, such as mobile computers, portable data storage devices, desktop computers and communication devices, from loss or theft and to protect restricted data that may reside in such devices from unauthorized access.

PURPOSE:
Meredith College processes and stores many types of sensitive and private information that if lost or stolen could result in significant financial damage to students, faculty, staff and to the College. The current computing environment encourages insecure data storage practices which include storing information on devices that are especially susceptible to loss or theft because they are easily portable and can be used in a variety of environments.

PROCEDURES:
All faculty and staff should handle or store sensitive information only if absolutely necessary for their jobs. All sensitive information must be stored and disposed of in a secure manner. To facilitate the secure storage of all Meredith College data, all data storage devices that are owned by, or contains Meredith College sensitive data, must be encrypted. Examples of data storage devices are, but not limited to:

• Laptops
• Desktop Computers
• USB Flash Drives
• External Hard Drives
• Cellphone’s
• PDA’s

Technology Services will ensure that all data storage devices purchased through Technology Services are encrypted. Existing data storage devices will be encrypted by Technology Services in a managed deployment. Data storage devices that are not encrypted can be denied access to the College network or can be removed from service by Technology Services.

** Data storage devices purchased/acquired through other channels must be encrypted by the user. Please download instructions for encrypting your external hard drive.

Failure to encrypt a personal data storage device that contains Meredith College information will be referred to Human Resources and/or your immediate supervisor along with the suspension of all technology privileges.