## Work and study securely

Reading time
5 minutes

What you will learn
You will learn how you can study and work securely during your studies.

Summary
As soon as you have started studying, it is extremely important that you know how to work and study securely, whether you are at the education institution, at home or on the road. For this purpose, we drew up the three ‘Golden Rules’, which, as long as you follow them closely, will ensure that the risk of a data breach (the unintentional sharing of personal data) is kept to a minimum.

##
3 GOLDEN RULES

From the time that you begin studying until the moment you have graduated, you make use of software, documents and means of communication from your education institution. This carries with it responsibilities for all students. By following the three Golden Rules explained on this page, you can make sure you are working as securely as possible and that the risk of a data breach is kept to a minimum.

A data breach means that unauthorised persons have obtained access (often accidentally or through hacking) to personal data without this being the intention of the education institution.

## Rule 1: do not allow any unwanted people to shoulder surf

No matter where you work, whether it be on the train, on the bus, at home or at the education institution, make sure that no one can peek at your screen or files while you are working – not because you are necessarily always working with top secret information, but so that you can teach yourself to be careful about this.

Useful actions to take:

- Always close your laptop if you are going to be away from your laptop
- Use a webcam cover (you can pick up one for free at [location])
- Use privacy film on your laptop to significantly reduce the viewing angle (you can pick up one for free at [location]).

## Rule 2: take good care of your data

You produce new data on a daily basis: emails, files, photos and video clips. You in turn share many of those files with one or more other people. Make sure you are always in control of who has access to which of your files.

Useful actions to take:

- Always save files in the cloud storage serviceof your education institution
- Be cautious about sharing data: only share what is strictly necessary
- Be cautious with whom you share something: always share data with as few people as possible.

## Rule 3: take others into consideration

How do you want others to deal with your personal data? Exactly, verrrrry carefully. So take others into consideration, as you would have others take you into consideration in the handling of your personal information.

The context is very important in this regard. A fellow student's name does not by itself reveal much, but it does if the name is on a list of ‘students with below average performance’, for example. Sharing address details of a fellow student with their parents does not seem like a problem, until it suddenly emerges that the parents and the student have been at loggerheads for years. Therefore, you must always look carefully at the context and the circumstances in which you are going to share the data.

Useful actions to take:

- Inform people when you are taking a photo or shooting a video clip (‘I will only use this photo in our closed study group’)
- Ask for consent, if possible (‘Is it OK if I use this photo which you are also in as the profile photo for our study group?’)
- If you still accidentally distribute information about someone further than was intended, always inform the person in question about this. You would probably also want them to do the same for you...

If you follow these three rules, then we can work together on a secure learning and working environment at our education institution.

Many thanks in advance for your cooperation!