Greetings Campus Community,

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, an annual initiative to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity. Each week Technology Services will share tips and practices designed to improve your cybersecurity knowledge. Our goal is to promote deliberate, mindful behavior that serves to protect our information assets.

Data privacy for individuals means reviewing privacy settings on social media, being mindful of entering data into websites and taking ownership of one's online identity.

Data privacy for higher education institutions extends these principles to caring for other people's data, from collection, processing, sharing, storing and destruction. Use this suggested content to promote personal privacy, institutional privacy and data privacy at Fresno State.

Your Digital Footprint
The internet is full of data about you. A digital footprint is a trail of data you create while using the Internet. Whenever you play a game, shop, browse websites, or use any of numerous apps, your activity and some of your personal information may be collected and shared.

Similarly, the business of higher education requires us to collect, process, and store the digital information of others. Whenever we handle such information, we need to think about how we want our own information treated and treat other people's data with the same care and respect.

Protect yourself by following these tips:

• Know what you are sharing. Check the privacy settings on all of your social media accounts; some even include a wizard to walk you through the settings. Always be cautious about what you post publicly.

• Guard your date of birth and telephone numbers. These are key pieces of information used for identity and account verification and you should not share them publicly. If an online service or site asks you to share this critical information, consider whether it is important enough to share it.

• Keep your work and personal presences separate. You should use an outside service for private emails. This also helps you ensure uninterrupted access to your private email and other services if you switch employers.

Protect the information, identity and privacy of others by following these tips:

• Know what policies are in place at California State University (CSU) and Fresno State. A privacy policy governs how the University collects, processes, stores, and deletes the personal data of our constituents. A data classification policy governs how the institution organizes the data it interacts with and what rules are in place for processing it. An information security policy articulates how the institution governs and prioritizes information security activities.

• Keep constituents' personal information confidential and limit access to the data.

• Only use data for its intended purpose. If you need to use data for another reason, always check relevant resources and policies first for guidance.

• Destroy or de-identify private information when you no longer need it.