Articles

Data Protection Reminders

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Over the last year, of the personal data incidents that have been reported within the university, two thirds were because a member of staff had sent an email to the wrong person or people by mistake.

Always ensure you take these steps when sending emails:

  • Double-check, before you press "Send", that the email addresses you are sending to are the right ones.
  • Bear in mind that "Autocomplete" will fill in an email address of someone you have emailed before, when you start typing in an email address. It might not be the person you intend to write to.
  • If you are sending to someone outside the university, you will get a warning message, so that you can check whether you really intended to send to that person. You won't get a warning message if you are sending to someone within the University (either staff or student), so you need to check that they are the right person.
  • Bear in mind that students should not be copied in to information about third parties, either other students, or members of staff.
  • Be careful about clicking on "Reply all" – think carefully about whether you really want to, or need to reply to all. It's easy to do by mistake as the "Reply all" button is next to the "Reply" button on the toolbar.
  • Use "blind copy" rather than putting a large number of people in the "To" field of an email, particularly if there are personal email addresses amongst those you are writing to. If you need to use Blind Copy, if it doesn't come up automatically, if you click on "To" it will come up in the box below.

If you do suffer a data incident, remember the following:

In addition, there is also a half day face-to-face training workshop Managing Information – Keeping it Legal – which provides information and advice to help you manage information effectively, working within relevant legislation.  It runs on each campus, and is next running on 4 June at Greenwich campus, for more information and how to book please see the Staff Development hub.

If you have any questions please contact Lucy Fincham.