LFS IT Policy

February 14, 2024

LFS adheres to SC14, also known as the Acceptable Use and Security of UBC Electronic Information and Systems. It outlines the responsibilities of members of the University community with respect to the acceptable use and security of university electronic information and the services, devices and facilities that store or transmit this information. 

The LFS community is encouraged to familiarise themselves with the policies that make up SC 14. 

Related documents: Information Security Standards, below are some highlights.

Standards for All Users

Management and Technical Standards

Privacy Matters 

Faculty and staff in the LFS community often work with personal identifiable and sensitive information from students, other employees and external users. These records are subject to British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) legislation. Here are some quick links to recommendations by the UBC Cybersecurity Office for working with this type of information safely. Contact the Learning Centre if you have any questions or need assistance. 

For a full listing of resources, visit the Privacy Matters website. 

File Services and Backups 

To ensure compliance with FIPPA, UBC data must be stored in university-provided storage solutions. 

Staff Users 

LFS administrative units are provided with network folders on TeamShare (L drive). Contact us if a new shared folder is required or access permission changes and updates. 

TeamShare back up and retention schedule 

  • every two hours between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm and kept for five days 
  • and daily at midnight and kept for 30 days 

Users can access the back-up to recover data by themselves using these instructions. 

Faculty Users 

LFS researchers are advised to use UBC provided storage for their research data. The UBC Office of Research Ethics will provide advice on research matters.  

The Chinook Object Storage platform is available to all researchers by application and there is no charge for this service currently. We will help you with the storage application process, all research faculty members are encouraged to put in an application. 

The Globus sync client provides a straightforward way for accessing, transferring, and sharing of data stored in Chinook. Clients are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. 

Chinook allows sharing via email address to collaborators located anywhere around the globe.   

TeamShare is available to researchers by request. There is a cost associated with this offering, contact the Learning Centre for details. 

Storage Options Available to All Users 

Microsoft Teams can be set up for each research group or project. It provides a central place for communications as well as file and data storage. The files can be synchronised to your local computer using the OneDrive client. 

Personal Storage Options 

Microsoft OneDrive is available to all active faculty, staff, and student users. Each user is allocated 1TB of storage and you can share files and folders confidentially to anyone. 

Home Drive is a service for active faculty and staff users with a quota of 20GB. It does not support file sharing, if sharing is needed, use OneDrive. 

Equipment Purchased with UBC Funds 

Hardware Supported by the Learning Centre 

All UBC-owned computers assigned to staff members are managed by the Learning Centre to ensure that the operating systems and installed software applications are kept up-to-date using a remote monitoring and management application. 

This service is extended to computers purchased with UBC-administered funds belonging to faculty members and their research labs. If you choose not to use this service, you are then responsible to keep your computer systems up-to-date and apply any critical patches as they are made available by the software vendors. Alerts will be sent to the LFS community as we receive information from the UBC Cybersecurity office. 

Encryption 

Following SC14 recommendations, all computers purchased through the Learning Centre will have disk encryption enabled and the recovery keys recorded in our inventory. Users are responsible for backing up their data to TeamShare (L and H drives) or in a synchronised Teams/OneDrive folder. This is important as data cannot be recovered from a corrupted hard disk that is encrypted. 

Disposal of Computers 

Drop off your computing assets to the Learning Centre when they are retired from service, and we will remove and securely destroy all hard disk drives. This is to ensure that we do not leak any confidential information. 

These machines will be sent to e-waste and marked as disposed in our inventory system. 

Bringing Your Own Device (BYOD) 

If you use your personal desktop or laptop for UBC business, keep these considerations in mind. 

  • Personal devices are outside of the LFS LC management scope, therefore support will be limited. It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that their devices meet UBC CIO Security Standards as well as UBC Policy SC14. 
  • Not all UBC-licensed software can be installed on non-UBC-owned computers. Examples include SAS and Microsoft Office for non-student employees. 
  • Device encryption is encouraged. 
  • These devices will not be allowed on any LFS wired networks. Internet access will be via UBC wireless only. 

Requirements for BYOD Devices