Protecting Your Data

Good Practice for Computer Security

• Never tell anyone your student number or your password.
• We recommend that you change your password to a unique one that only you know.
• Be very suspicious if you get an e-mail message asking you to do something to compromise the security of your account even if it seems to have come from Yukon College Computer Support. Please report any message like this to Student Computer Support.
• E-Mail IS NOT a private channel of communication. It is just like a post card sent through the mail system. Most of the time it doesn't get read by anyone else, but it is open.
• When prohibited activity is alleged or detected, Yukon College will pursue the owner of the account. Therefore do not allow others to use your account.
• There is always the possibility of a system crash, network outage, power outage, or some other interruption of your work which may result in loss of your data, files, or software. Please take steps to minimize your risk; frequently back up any work that is important to you.

 

Your Privacy

In an operational sense, Yukon College Computing Services regards files in your account and data on the network as private: that is, employees of Yukon College do not routinely look at this information. However, the College reserves the right to view or scan any file or software stored on College systems or transmitted over College networks, and will do so periodically to verify that software and hardware are working correctly, to look for particular kinds of data or software (such as computer viruses), or to audit the use of College resources. Violations of policy that come to the Yukon College Computing Services' attention during these and other activities will be acted upon. You should be aware that electronic mail and messages sent through computer networks, including the Internet, may not remain confidential while in transit or on the destination computer system.

Also note that your data on the Yukon College computing systems is backed up periodically. In case of data loss we may be able to perform a recovery from backup archives. Contact Student Computer Support if you need to have data restored. Understand however, that this is not a fail-safe method, and the best way to keep your files safe is to get into the habit of keeping your files organized and stored in multiple places. It is recommended that you keep a copy of your documents in your personal directory on the Yukon College system, on a USB flash drive and at home on a personal computer. If any of these storage media is lost or damaged then you will always have a backup.