If you’re planning a digital or workspace spring-clean, read these tips first

With only a few weeks to go until the end of the year, you might be planning to tidy up your files. 

We all benefit from a well-ordered workspace, whether that’s your physical office or your digital environment. This can include email folders, OneDrive or SharePoint, digital files, hard copies in folders and files on your desk or in filing cabinets. 

If you’ve caught the spring-cleaning bug, refer to this checklist to ensure you’re handling those files in a way that meets the data protection obligations that apply to all staff at UNSW. 

Recordkeeping 

• Identify any UNSW records in your home drive, share drives or email folders and move them to a UNSW System of Record
• Track down any paper copies of personally identifiable information including UNSW records, scan them, then store them in a UNSW System of Record 
• Review records that contain personal information, especially identity documents like passports and drivers’ licences, and assess whether such records need to be retained (we should not be keeping such information for any longer than is necessary) 
• Before disposing of any hard copies or digital versions of UNSW records, talk to Records & Archives about the correct disposal method.

Other files 

• Clean out your Outlook folders, filing any non-record emails that you still want to keep in a OneDrive or SharePoint folder 
• If you use OneDrive, treat it as your temporary workspace and be sure to file any final versions in an appropriate SharePoint folder. 

Teams 

• Don’t forget to give your Teams and associated SharePoint folders a quick clean up by 
  • reviewing and updating Team Members and Guests 
  • reviewing access controls for Guests 
  • remove Members and Guests from inactive Teams, archive the files and delete the Team. 

Do your part to protect everyone’s data at UNSW by using the ‘quiet time’ at the end or beginning of the year to perform these important checks.