One of the benefits of commuting to work on the train is the ability to read while I ride. But as much as I love to read, I’m always uncomfortable when a fellow passenger is looking over my shoulder.
While it may be annoying, “backseat reading” in and of itself is fairly harmless. But I always worry when I see fellow passengers with their laptops open. It’s why I’m careful about what I take on the train and why I never open sensitive work-related material while I ride. I can’t be sure who’s looking over my shoulder, or what their intentions might be.
I suppose that making these observations means I’m a backseat reader myself, but I know it’s based on my sensitivity toward protecting the privacy of others and my experience in helping financial-aid professionals do the same. It’s simply critical to have protections in place for protecting the privacy of the materials, data, stories, decisions, and disclosures that you will collect and use in the financial aid process. Whether you receive five financial-aid applications or 5,000 — tightening up your policies and procedures in this area could not be more important.
At a minimum, you need to consider the following set of privacy-related tips:
• Review your privacy policy: Is it up-to-date with current practices and regulations?
• Review your data security plan: How do you keep sensitive family and financial information from falling into the wrong hands?
• Be careful about how you safeguard information that you take away from the office: Do you protect or encrypt sensitive files or data stored on portable devices?
• Develop a data breach response plan: What will you do if you discover that information is being accessed and misused?
• Be cautious with Social Security numbers: Why do you need them? How do you protect them?
• Confirm that you are providing students and parents with the proper notices: What do you tell, or promise, parents about how you will use and safeguard their information?
• Train staff, and limit access to information: How do you keep your financial-aid committee, staff, and faculty apprised of their responsibilities for protecting privacy?
These ideas just skim the surface of important privacy issues to address. It’s why SSS By NAIS has partnered with a company called TeachPrivacy to create a series of videos and guides that you can use to help educate yourself, and your staff, about managing privacy issues in the financial-aid office, and throughout your school.
These are the types of resources we regularly make available to SSS subscribers. If you are an SSS subscriber, you can access the materials by visiting www.sss.nais.org/schools and clicking on the “Articles and Monographs” link on the left hand navigation menu. If you are not a current member, you can visit the same link and click on “Subscribing Is Easy.”