Early Bird

Tips for safeguarding confidential data

Protecting sensitive Personally Identifiable Information is a top priority at MSU Denver.

By Diane Watkins

February 7, 2019

Many departments at Metropolitan State University of Denver routinely handle sensitive Personally Identifiable Information — data that can be used or combined with other information to uniquely identify, contact, locate or impersonate an individual.

Sensitive PII is always considered confidential, including:

• Social Security Number
• Educational records protected by FERPA
• Driver’s license number
• Passport number
• Alien registration number
• Financial-account numbers (bank, credit card, etc.)
• Biometric identifiers
• Protected Health Information, which is protected by HIPAA

Information Technology Services offers the following guidelines for safeguarding sensitive PII:

Take stock.

• Know what PII you have in your files and on your computers.

Scale down.

• Keep only what you need.

Lock it.

• Protect the information you keep. This includes physical and electronic security.

Pitch it.

• Properly dispose of what you no longer need.

Share and store cautiously.

• Never send PII via email or store on cloud services, such as Dropbox or OneDrive.

Report it.

• Immediately report all suspected or confirmed privacy incidents to the ITS Helpdesk at 303-352-7548 or support.msudenver.edu.

Additional information about PII may be found on the ITS Security webpage at www.msudenver.edu/technology/security.

MSU Denver is committed to protecting the PII of students, faculty, staff and other individuals associated with the University. Please do your part in protecting the PII entrusted to you.