Data Privacy Day 2020: Tips to Safeguard Your Personal Data

January 22, 2020

 Associate Vice Chancellor - IT and Chief Information Officer

RE: Data Privacy Awareness Day is Jan. 28. Please familiarize yourself with recommendations and best practices for keeping your personal data safe. 

To the campus community,

On Tuesday, Jan. 28, we celebrate Data Privacy Awareness Day, an international effort to empower individuals and businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data, and enable trust. We are writing to share some recommendations and best practices for keeping your personal data safe from unwanted disclosure. The need to protect our personal data has become increasingly important as more and more information about us is collected through our online interactions.    

Tips for Keeping Your Personal Data Safe

  • Don’t rely on default security settings and feel free to opt out when using websites where your personal information is shared. As of Jan. 1, 2020, under the new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), most commercial websites are now required to inform you of how your personal data is used and give you the right to opt out of having your data sold to a third party. 
  • Follow campus passphrase guidelines by selecting a strong password and then follow the recommendations to keep your passwords safeguarded. 
  • Don’t share or disclose personal or confidential information when using public Wi-Fi networks. Be wary of emails, calls, or text messages requesting personal or confidential information and don’t click on links from unknown sources. 
  • Learn more about data privacy at UC Berkeley and read useful articles on this topic. 

For more tips on how to protect your data online explore our Data Privacy Toolkit. As always, if you experience any suspicious online activity, phishing emails, texts, or calls on campus please reportthem to consult@berkeley.edu  as soon as possible.

Regards,

Larry Conrad, Associate Vice Chancellor for IT and Chief Information Officer
Scott Seaborn, Interim Privacy Officer

If you are a manager who supervises UC Berkeley employees without email access, please circulate this information to all.

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