Electronic Information Privacy Policy

 

Introduction

This Policy addresses how information in the College electronic systems will be kept private and the circumstances under which they may be disclosed to people or organizations other than the person responsible for the information. It covers all information stored or processed on College electronic information systems including our telecommunications systems

Definition

Responsible Party:

1. In general, departments/individuals are responsible for the use and dissemination of information under their purview. For example, the registrar is responsible for electronic information about student records,
2. Individuals are responsible for their email and for information that they keep on systems allocated to them by the College.
3. The Information Technology Services department is responsible for all other electronic records, which includes system logs and usage information.

Policy

The College takes reasonable steps to protect electronic resources from unauthorized entry or access, but, for example, email is not secure by its nature and thus community members should have no expectation of its privacy. The College encourages the use of electronic mail and respects the privacy of users. It does not routinely inspect, monitor, or disclose electronic mail. The College also does not routinely keep or monitor the usage of its system by individuals.

Occasional use of any electronic information may be made by ITS personnel to maintain integrity of the network and/or computer systems including but not limited to identifying equipment or persons that are compromising the College’s network or computers and/or trying to disrupt the normal functions of the College’s computer systems (knowingly or not on the part of individuals).

Employees with access to information stored on the College systems may have access to information because of their position and are responsible for safeguarding that information according to the policies of the department, government regulation and the law. Employees should take this responsibility seriously and be fully aware of the policies regarding disclosure of electronic information for which they have been given access.

It is the policy of the College that information stored in its computer systems, including email or information about usage of the system or any of its components, will not be shared by ITS with anyone except under one of the following conditions:

A) With permission of the responsible party,
B) A legal mandate as determined by College Counsel,
C) In extraordinary circumstances (such as a threat to personal safety) and at the direction of the President of Occidental College.

It is against College policy for any member of the community to try to defeat the security measures of our systems to access electronic information for which they have not been given access.