Data Privacy Month — 2020 | Privacy Office | Seneca College

January is Data Privacy Month and this year's theme is Privacy is Everybody’s Business. Throughout the month, the Privacy Office will be promoting privacy awareness on My.Seneca, at booths across the campus and through social media. On January 27, 2020, we hosted a live presentation by David Goodis,  Assistant Commissioner, Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Office.

Emailing personal information

1. Sending identifiable personal information by email can result in unintended privacy breaches if a sender accidentally sends the information to an incorrect recipient, a malicious party intercepts the email, or the information is forwarded to someone who does not have a job related reason to be included. When sending personal information: 

1. 1. Internally - Use SharePoint or One Drive so you can restrict the level of access to the personal information (anyone with the link, only people within your organization, only people with existing access to the file, or only individuals you specify).
   2. Externally - Use Seneca’s File Transfer Service to achieve a secure encrypted channel for sensitive information.

 Confidential conversations

2. There are simple ways to keep conversations confidential:

1. 1. Use meeting rooms when discussing sensitive information.
   2. Speak in lower tones when discussing information in more common areas.
   3. Ask others to step back to allow space.
   4. Avoid the use of speakerphones in shared office spaces.

Preventing privacy breaches

3. Here are few ways to prevent some of the more common privacy breaches:

1. 1. Use strong passwords to protect your accounts and never share your password with anyone.
   2. Only connect mobile devices to trusted and secure Wi-Fi networks.
   3. Shred documents that contain personal or sensitive information.

Privacy impact assessments

4. A privacy impact assessment (PIA) is a tool used to identify the effects a proposed or existing information system, technology, program, process or other activity may have on an individual’s privacy. The PIA helps Seneca identify specific privacy impacts and ways to address them. Contact the privacyoffice@senecacollege.ca to engage us in a privacy review.

Privacy legislation

5. Seneca’s obligations under privacy are legislated by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) and in some circumstances, the European Union – General Data Protection Regulation (EU-GDPR). Employees are encouraged to contact the privacyoffice@senecacollege.ca to find out how these obligations affect daily, department information practices.