Changes to the University email address list
Published: 6 November 2018
To make it easier to avoid data breaches, amendments are being made to student display names
To make it easier to avoid data breaches, amendments are being made to student display names in the University Email Global Address List (GAL) by adding (student) to their name [e.g. Jane Smith (student)]. This change will take place soon.
Background
With the introduction of new data protection legislation earlier in the year (GDPR), it has become even more important not to inadvertently disclose personal details.
These data breaches (inadvertent or not) need to be reported by the University to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours of the incident happening. One of the major causes of data breaches is sending an email to the wrong person: most frequently a member of staff sends an email to a student with the same or similar name to the intended staff recipient.
It’s likely that most of us have, at some point, accidentally sent an email message to the wrong person – either through mistyping the recipient email address, choosing the wrong recipient from the University’s Email Global Address list, or being unaware that auto-completion has inserted the wrong address. Adding (student) to Email addresses will make it easier to avoid these types of data breaches.
Training
To find out more about data protection requirements and good cyber security practices, training materials have been developed and are available on Moodle. You are encouraged to access these now at the University's GDPR webpages.
First published: 6 November 2018