As a measure to safeguard private data, the University has created a training program to begin in late July or early August. While training is focused on faculty and staff members who come in contact with sensitive information such as Social Security or credit card numbers, it is also open to community members who wish to learn how to protect their personal information.

The training walks participants through real-life scenarios, such as how to share a spreadsheet containing sensitive data with a staff member in a different unit.

“The problem is that it’s very easy to tell people ‘be careful,’ but it’s much more difficult to tell them how to be careful because our jobs frequently require us to interact with sensitive data,” said Mike Corn, director of security services and information privacy in the University’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.

Prior to this training, the University developed a program called Firefly which scans a computer’s local hard drive to locate files that contain Social Security or credit card numbers last fall.

“A lot of people still have old files with Social Security numbers,” Corn said. “Grade rosters used to have Social Security numbers before the i-Card came out, so the idea here was to help people find the old files and clean them up.”

Corn said that this improves security on campus by reducing the risk involved should a computer become compromised.

Last August an e-mail containing sensitive information including the ethnicity, grade point average, local address and other personal information about more than 5,000 students enrolled in the College of Engineering was accidentally sent to the electrical engineering students in the college.

Corn said, however, that there is not a link between the incident and the new training program.

“The file that was sent out, that whole incident, I think that illustrates the importance of security, but it certainly didn’t raise our need for it,” Corn said. “That need existed before, during and after that incident.”