Staff members who handle confidential district business information, including personal information about staff and/or students, have a responsibility to manage that information appropriately. Files containing personal information should be stored securely and deleted as soon as they have been transferred to the shared folder, database or service they are destined for.
Follow the proper document management hygiene outlined below to reduce the risk of storing and inappropriately sharing confidential information on your computer’s drives.
Locate and Name Files Appropriately
Mistakes happen when you have multiple files with non-descriptive naming stored inside a generic folder like Downloads. You can minimize the risks by:
- Creating a sub-folder in your Downloads entitled “To Delete”
- Replacing the generic file (ex. Untitled.PDF) name with something specific.
See a demonstration here:
Create a Schedule to Delete Items
- If you are working with a large number of files over several days (ex. completing a registration cycle), put a reminder in your calendar to prompt you to remove all the files after the work is due to be completed.
- If you are working with individual files, create a “To Delete” folder as described above and set a regular reminder to check the folder for items you no longer need.