Conditions of Use. Communications and IT Facilities

Transcription

1 Conditions of Use of Communications and IT Facilities

2 For the purposes of these conditions of use, the IT Facilities are [any of the University s IT facilities, including , the internet and other networks, and all computers, laptops and related software and hardware]. This should be interpreted with the widest application and be taken to include facilities provided centrally and those within Departments or Schools. These conditions apply to all users of the IT Facilities. By accessing and/or using the IT Facilities, you agree to be bound by these Conditions of Use including all documents referred to in them, and you agree to adhere to the requirements of all applicable statutory regulations and provisions. Your attention is particularly drawn to the section on working practices and the penalties including expulsion/dismissal from the University for breach of these Conditions of Use. Working practices 1. Owing to the nature of IT systems, software and the internet, the University cannot guarantee the continuous availability of the IT Facilities and/or the data saved on those facilities. You should save your work regularly, and take frequent back-ups of data either in hard copy form, to removable media, or to a non-university system. 2. The University has IT security systems in place, but cannot guarantee that these will prevent all attempts to access confidential or restricted data. You must ensure that confidential material is password protected and/or encrypted as appropriate to prevent unauthorised access by third parties. However, procedures must be established, within each School or Department, to ensure that authorised staff may gain access, when needed, to any information that is protected by password or held in an encrypted form. General 3. IT Facilities are provided primarily to facilitate a person s essential work as an employee or student or other role within the University. The IT Facilities remain, at all times, the property of the University. 4. You may only use the IT Facilities for commercial activities if you are an employee of the University and such use forms part of your duties of employment. You may not use the IT Facilities to advertise any trade, service or profession not endorsed by the University. You should raise any queries on whether a commercial activity using the IT Facilities is permitted with your line manager before commencing the relevant use of the IT Facilities. 1

3 5. You must not carry out any action (including loading any software on to the IT Facilities) that shall or may interfere with the normal working of the IT Facilities or may interfere with or disrupt other users use of the IT Facilities or access, corrupt or modify any other user s data without their consent. 6. You must not deliberately introduce a virus, worm, trojan or other similar code nor take any action to circumvent, or reduce the effectiveness of, any anti-virus precautions established for or by the University. 7. You are responsible for all use of your username. Except as might be required by the procedures established in accordance with paragraph 2 above, you should not make your username or password available to anyone nor should you use any other person s username, address or security keys. 8. You must not create or distribute materials using the IT Facilities which are designed or likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety. Except as might be reasonably required as part of the University s business, you must not send unsolicited s to multiple recipients such unsolicited might be regarded by some recipients as spam. 9. You must not interfere or attempt to interfere with any information belonging to, or prepared by, another user without their permission or without appropriate authority. 10. You must not install non-approved software on the IT facilities. Approved software is software installed either via the central IT Services team, or via School technical support teams, or via individuals with approval of a designated School/Department IT representative. One reason for this is that the University is liable for any illegal software installations and must ensure that the appropriate licences are bought for the number of machines on which the software is loaded. The other reason is to ensure that there are no compatibility issues between standard University approved software and other non approved software. 11. You will not be given administrative privileges on any IT facility unless you can provide sufficient justification to the Director of IT and Media Services that your roles, or specific applications you use, require it. IT will investigate such justifications, and administrative rights will only be granted once the justification is validated. This does not apply to: a. Users of laptops where remote IT support is not always possible whilst the user is away from campus for periods of time. b. Users of applications which IT have investigated and reached the conclusion that there is no workaround to ensure the application works as required without administrative privileges. 12. You must not connect an unauthorised device to the IT facilities, particularly any equipment that has not been configured to comply with these Conditions of Use or any other regulations, such as those relating to information security, IT 2

4 purchasing or Health and Safety. 13. You must not tamper with the configuration of any University PC or any cables or peripheral devices attached to PCs. 14. You must not use the IT facilities to plagiarise work authored by others. (Refer to academic regulations for further details.) Legal Requirements and Prohibited Uses 15. You must not use the IT Facilities in any way that could expose you or the University to any criminal or civil liability. 16. You must use the IT Facilities in accordance with the following: software - software should always be used in accordance with the terms of the relevant licence, and copying software without the licence holder s permission is prohibited. You must observe the CHEST Code of Conduct for the Use of Computer Software or Datasets. rights in content - do not use third party text, images, sounds, trademarks and logos (all of which are protected by intellectual property rights) in materials such as s, documents and web pages without the consent of the author. offensive material - except for expressly authorised and properly supervised academic study, you must not use the IT Facilities to access, store or distribute material that is obscene, indecent or that others might reasonably find offensive. discrimination and harassment - you must not create, distribute or access material that is unlawfully discriminatory, including on the grounds of sex, race, disability or religion; that is likely to incite any form of violence or hatred; or that is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. computer misuse - unauthorised access to accounts (including stealing or misusing a password), programs and/or data and all forms of hacking are prohibited, and may be an offence under the Computer Misuse Act defamation you should take care to avoid content which may be defamatory. Particular care is needed when posting material on the web or to distribution lists. It is best to assume documents such as s may become known to others. Such material may be subject to the requirements on the University to disclose documents under the Freedom of Information Act personal data - data on living persons must be held and processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act All users must ensure that they abide by the principles of the Data Protection Act and the University s 3

5 Data Protection Act Policy. In particular they must not collect, process or disclose any data without checking whether a) the University is registered to do so, and b) it is in a manner that complies with the Act. Student users must not construct or maintain files of personal data for use in connection with their academic studies/research without the express authority of an appropriate member of staff. Any queries must be referred to the Head of School or Department. disability discrimination - any service that is provided on the IT Facilities must be in accordance with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and/or the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act Specifically, reasonable efforts must be made to ensure that there is no impediment to particular users taking up the service as a result of a disability. external services use of services external to the University must be in accordance with any policies, rules or codes of conduct applying to those services, and in accordance with the JANET Acceptable Use Policy. formation of contracts - you should note that it is possible to form contracts electronically, without any hard copy confirmation from the user. Care should be taken to obtain appropriate authority before purporting to commit the University to any contractual obligations (which may include clicking I agree to an online dialogue box) and the wording subject to contract should be used on s where appropriate. Personal use 17. The IT Facilities are made available for you to use principally for the purpose of your work or studies. However, we realise that you may occasionally want to use the IT Facilities for your own purposes. Your use for such purposes is in the knowledge that the IT equipment may be used by other staff and that personal files cannot be guaranteed to remain unscrutinised. You are only allowed to make personal use of the IT Facilities if such use: does not interfere with the performance of your work or studies; does not incur unwarranted expense on the University; does not have a negative impact on the University; does not constitute unauthorised commercial activity; and is otherwise in accordance with these Conditions of Use. Consideration for other IT users 18. You must show consideration for other users of the IT Facilities. For example, you must not use a University machine for social in a location where others are waiting to use the facilities for academic or other University purposes. 4

6 Internet publishing 19. If you publish information on web pages on behalf of the University or using the IT Facilities, you are subject to additional regulations, which are maintained and published by the University s Web Advisory Board. In particular, you must notify the Web Advisory Board or its officers before web site development begins. Monitoring and privacy 20. The University acts in accordance with applicable legislation and the Information Commissioner s Employment Practices Data Protection Code, notably in relation to the monitoring of use of the IT Facilities. 21. The University undertakes some routine monitoring of activity on the IT Facilities to ensure that they operate correctly, to protect against the risk of harm from viruses and other known threats, and to restrict access to or from internet sites that are deemed inappropriate. This does not normally involve the monitoring of personal communications or the disclosure of the contents of any user files. 22. The University may access the files on any equipment or monitor your use of the IT Facilities, including s sent and received and web pages visited: to protect the IT Facilities against viruses and hackers; to assist in the investigation of breaches of these Conditions of Use, as described in paragraphs 23 to 27 below; to prevent or detect suspected or possible misconduct or crime or other unauthorised use of the IT Facilities; and where such access or monitoring is necessary, to pursue the University s other legitimate interests, for example the detection of plagiarism, or by accessing files and reviewing the s of employees who are absent, or to enable the office functions to be undertaken/shared by appropriate members of staff. Disciplinary regulations and enforcement 23. If you use the IT Facilities in breach of these Conditions of Use, the University may take action in accordance with its documented Disciplinary Procedures. In particular, the following types of conduct are likely to result in disciplinary action (this list is not exhaustive): all illegal acts using the IT Facilities, including those set out above; sending of s that any member of the University reasonably finds offensive; and deliberate interference with the normal working of IT equipment, facilities or services. 24. Where an allegation has been made against a student under the University s academic regulations, the University shall have the right to inspect and take 5

7 copies of any material held in the name of that student on any of the IT Facilities that might provide evidence for or against the allegation. 25. Where an alleged breach of these Conditions of Use is brought to the attention of the University, all reasonable measures will be taken to investigate whether the allegation is justified and, if so, the steps necessary to prevent further abuse will be taken. This may involve inspecting the contents of a user s files or messages. 26. Inspection and copying of a user s files shall only be undertaken if authorised by the Vice-Chancellor, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor or a Pro Vice-Chancellor. All reasonable efforts shall be made to avoid inspection of files not connected with the relevant allegations, and such files will be copied only if the Senior Manager giving authority is satisfied that such a step is unavoidable. 27. If a complaint or allegation is received, your account may be immediately suspended for investigation. Penalties for breach of these Conditions of Use may include temporary or long term suspension of your access to the IT Facilities, and/or other disciplinary penalties up to and including expulsion from University in the case of a student, dismissal from the University in the case of staff, or a permanent suspension of access to facilities in the case of a conference attendee or other visitor. The University will co-operate fully with any police investigations in relation to the use of IT facilities. Christopher Cobb Chair SIIC April 2006 (Revised January 2008) 6