On campus

Make sure you lock your office when you leave, even if you are only popping out for a few minutes. Don’t leave your devices unattended in public areas such as cafes, computer clusters or libraries.

Out and about

Be careful when you are out and about, and watch out for pickpockets or thieves targeting your bags. If you are in a café or restaurant be careful where put your devices- thieves often use a distraction to snatch your device while you are not looking.

If possible, don’t leave devices in your car, but if you have to make sure they are locked away out of sight.

It’s also easy to lose devices accidentally – double check you’ve got your devices with you before leaving public transport or a café.

Minimise the damage

There are a number of steps you can take to minimise the damage if you do lose your device or have it stolen.

• If you do lose your device, and you’ve used it to access University systems (including email) let the IT Service Desk know immediately and change your University password.
• Make sure you set a PIN or password – that way even if your device is lost or stolen, it is less likely someone else will be able to access your data or run up huge phone bills.
• Set up ‘remote wipe’ and ‘find my device’ functions
• Back up your data. You might back up the data on your PC regularly, but have you thought about doing this for your mobile device?

For more information see the ‘Device Security’ section of the Information Protection Policy.