Students Employed by Queen's (PDF, 300 KB)
As a Queen鈥檚 University student who is also a Queen鈥檚 employee, you have been given a separate NetID from your student NetID to be used for your employment. It is very important to keep your employee identity separate and distinct from your student identity.
Whether you are a Teaching Assistant or any other kind of student employed by Queen鈥檚, you may have access to confidential or sensitive information. Confidential information could include legal or financial documents, research data, patent applications, or draft policy documents.
Confidential information could also include personal information of students or others. If you are a TA, for example, you could have access to student numbers, grades, completed tests and term papers.
Queen鈥檚 University, like all universities in Ontario, is subject to the (FIPPA), which governs the way personal information is collected, used, disclosed, retained and destroyed. Under FIPPA, it is a violation of privacy to disclose a student鈥檚 personal information to another student; however, it is not a violation of privacy to disclose a student鈥檚 personal information to an employee who has a legitimate need to know for purposes of their employment. It is imperative, therefore, that the capacity in which a person is sending and receiving personal information is clear. This can only be achieved if your student and employment identities are kept distinct and separate.
You should not, therefore, forward your employee email to your student account, or any other personal email account. This creates risk both for the University and you as a student employee in terms of privacy breaches and complaints.
Personal information is anything that can be used to identify someone, including their:
- race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status
- educational, medical, psychiatric, psychological, criminal or employment history
- name, address, telephone number, fingerprints, or blood type
- identifying number (SIN, student ID, employment ID), symbol, or other particular assigned to them
Personal information is NOT:
- a name, title, or contact information that identifies someone in their business, professional, or official capacity, even if they conduct their business from home
In addition to privacy concerns, you should know that the records you create and receive as an employee, including emails, are university records. They belong to Queen鈥檚 University and are subject to any rules and procedures pertaining to university records including the Records Management Policy and provincial access and privacy legislation. It is possible that a request for access to those records (including emails) could be made in which case you will be asked to search for and produce records responsive to the request. Keeping your work-related emails separate from your own personal emails eliminates any risk that your personal emails will get drawn into a search for records.
When you cease to be a Queen鈥檚 employee, you should not retain any of the work email you have sent or received. ITServices can easily disable your access to the Queen鈥檚 employee account without interfering with your student email account.
Do...
- Use your employee NetID and employee email account for your Queen鈥檚 employment
Do not...
- Use your student NetID and student email account for your Queen鈥檚 employment
- Forward your employee email account to your student email account
Think about it...
As a student yourself, would you want your student information鈥攕uch as your student number and grades鈥攖o end up in your TA鈥檚 personal email account forever?
Beyond email
The directive to maintain a separate employment persona carries over to all other work-related records, not just to email. Accordingly, you should ensure that any work-related files (such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, etc.) are maintained in designated folders on a Queen鈥檚 University shared drive, or if maintained in a personal folder (such as on OneDrive for Business or on a personal computer), that they are not retained after employment terminates.
If you require access to information that could contain confidential or personal information of others, there are several options for protecting the files. In all cases, be sure to access files with your employee NetID.
- Use Office 365 to edit documents online and save files directly to OneDrive for Business. This will ensure the files do not reside on your personal device. Do not sync files to a personal device without encrypting the files or the device (see below).
- Use Windows File Service to save work files on a Queen鈥檚-hosted drive, or, for even more security, use Windows Terminal Services. Both services can be accessed remotely using a (VPN). These services must be requested by the department you are employed with. Read about
- Encrypt documents if there is any chance they will reside on your personal device or on a USB drive. See the
- Encrypt personal devices. If you do not encrypt the documents themselves, then you must encrypt your devices, including USB drives. Find out about the