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:
  • Internal Integrity and Security Directorate
  • Information Management
  • Information Categorization Tool

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.