5 Mar 2004:

The University of Washington recently instituted a security policy "to help ensure the security and availability of information technology systems and networks and the confidentiality and integrity of electronic information captured, maintained, and used by the UW."

The policy applies "to all users (employees, faculty, students, contractors, and others) and support personnel (system administrators, network engineers, systems engineers, and others) of UW computing systems, networks, digital information, and any other electronic processing or communications related resources or services provided through the UW."

This means that you should read it to determine your roles and responsibilities as a user, system/network administrator (if applicable, for authorized equipment), and/or data custodian. These are roles you perform, not a job title or status, such as student, assistant professor, advisor, or receptionist, and they are defined in the policy.

Many of these responsibilities have a direct bearing on complying with state and federal laws, and can have serious consequences if there is non-compliance and legal action is taken.

You can also see the responsibilities of roles that you do not perform, such as system administrator, and know what they can do to support the policy, and determine how that affects you.