Maintain/Protect/Preserve
What You Need to Know
- All employees must handle personal and departmental information in accordance with policies, practices, and procedures.
- Regardless of its format-paper-based or electronic-an Information Resource of Business Value (IRBV) provides evidence that a transaction did or did not take place. This is critical information, so we have to store it in a way that makes it easy to find it again:
- Some information needs to be kept long-term to support the department’s operational requirements; other information of historical value needs to be preserved.
- Practice good recordkeeping to ensure complete and accurate records.
- Retain information that has been used for an administrative purpose for at least two years.
- Safeguard classified and protected information (electronically and physically):
- Use appropriate repositories based on your file’s security classification.
- Periodically review who has access to shared drives.
- Ensure shared drive access is controlled depending on your file’s security classification.
- Portable hard drives are not permitted on the ESDC network:
- If there is a business requirement that can only be adequately satisfied by the deployment of a portable drive, such technology may be installed on an exceptional basis. Contact the National Service Desk for more information.
- Never connect personal media devices (e.g. USB keys, cameras, iPods) to the network.
- Don’t share any of your passwords with other users.
- Use “Permission and Delegations” or “Out of Office Assistant” to manage your e-mail when you are away.
- Blackberry devices, laptops, memory cards, cameras, and voice recorders authorized for use by the department should be kept in a secured and locked location.
- Turn your Blackberry off during sensitive conversations.
- Use a password of at least six characters to secure your Blackberry.
Tools and Resources
- USB Storage Devices Directive and Approved Portable Devices
- Web Handbook for Employees
- To ensure protection of information – preparation, storage, handling, transmission and destruction, see:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a portable USB hard drive?
A portable USB hard drive (also known as external hard drive or media/back-up drive) is a computer hard drive that is attached to the computer externally using a USB cable. Portable USB hard drives are mainly used to increase a computer’s storage capacity, store data or transport large amounts of data from one computer to the other.
Why are External Hard Drives being prohibited?
They are now prohibited because they pose an unacceptable risk to departmental information:
- their small size makes them very easy to lose or misplace;
- it is difficult to protect information stored on them; and
- information stored on them must be made available to the rest of the Department for the purposes of responding to Access to Information and Privacy requests or legal proceedings.
Can I store my files on CDs/DVDs?
No. You should store your files on either a shared network drive or your personal network drive (F:).
Where can I find the ruling on how long to keep information?
The ruling was prescribed by the established retention schedule.