Privacy Year-Round

It’s mid-February, a time when winter starts to feel a bit too long and spring just a bit too far away. Even though the days feel long, our month-long focus on privacy awareness seems to have flown by much too quickly. As we close out the month, we reflect on what we have learned:

• At our Data Privacy kick-off webinar, we discussed how the use of big data raises big privacy concerns for higher education (and all industries).
• We learned that respecting autonomy privacy is key to some of our most highly respected higher education beliefs.
• We explored the concepts of compliance, security, and privacy to understand where these different concepts overlap.
• We discovered how to be mobile device-savvy, including a few simple steps we can take to protect privacy while on the go.

Even though we have explored many privacy issues, the importance of privacy awareness doesn’t end with the flipping of a calendar page. Indeed, regular attention to privacy awareness topics is needed in our always-on higher education environment. There are many things you can do to promote privacy awareness on your campus year-round. For instance, check out the HEISC Awareness and Training Working Group 2017 Campus Security Awareness Campaign. Don’t let the name deceive you. This resource features several months' worth of privacy-related topics and includes ready-made content for your campus communication channels:

• January 2017: Keep What's Private, Private
• April 2017: Don't Be Fooled! Protect Yourself and Your Identity
• August 2017: Are You Practicing Safe Social Networking?

Don’t forget to continue to share your higher education privacy knowledge and privacy tips. Join the EDUCAUSE privacy discussion group, follow @HEISCouncil on Twitter, and tweet your privacy tips using #PrivacyAware.

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Joanna L. Grama is director of cybersecurity and IT GRC programs for EDUCAUSE.

Valerie M. Vogel is senior manager of the cybersecurity program for EDUCAUSE