The Office of Information Technology, in partnership with UCI’s Public Records Office, begins its Annual Data Inventory on February 4, 2022, requiring all UCI campus employees to take steps towards ensuring UC Irvine data housed on their computers is secure.

All UCI staff and faculty have a duty to safeguard the security and privacy of information entrusted to them at UC Irvine. UC categorizes information based on the protection level it requires, according to risk. These protection levels (P1 – P4) for institutional information and resources are defined on the OIT Security website: Information and IT Resource Classification. 

Data Minimization: Unless law, policy, business, or research needs require storage of P3 or P4 data, it should be eliminated. Good data hygiene includes deleting P3/P4 data in a way that is consistent with the UC Records Retention Schedule and UCI Institutional Information Disposal Requirements. Reducing the amount of data reduces the risk of a breach.   

Data Mapping: If data must be preserved, it must be properly secured. The first step in safeguarding data is for staff and faculty to assess what data they have. This past year the campus needed to adapt to hybrid work, making it more important than ever to examine where/how information is stored.   

Before Friday, March 4: UCI staff and faculty should review electronic devices under their control (including tablets, phones, and removable media) and remove or secure any files or records that contain protected information. These data elements should not be stored in personal or unapproved cloud services.  

Staff and faculty collecting, using or storing P3 or P4 data electronically or on paper should inform their Unit Information Security Lead no later than Friday, March 4. Security leads maintain an inventory of data resources to facilitate risk assessment and compliance with law and policy and will help determine the best way to protect specific data.  

Additional information on securing computers and data is available on UCI’s Information Security website. 

Questions can be addressed to OIT Security at security@uci.edu.