Data Classification Guide to IT Services
Use this guide to make informed decisions about where to safely store and share university data. Protecting sensitive data is a shared responsibility. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of permitted services complies with laws, regulations, and policies where applicable. Please visit the Core Security Standards webpage for more information about how to safely secure workstations and servers. Contact IT-Security@uiowa.edu or Research-Computing@uiowa.edu with any questions.
Coming Soon: IT Services for Sensitive Data
We’re creating dedicated pages that explain which IT services can be used with HIPAA-protected data, Export-Controlled data, and other regulated data types. Once these resources are ready, we’ll link them here for easy access.
Data Types
Public: data that is public, or published with no restrictions. Examples include published "white pages" directory information, maps, academic course descriptions, news releases.
University/Internal: data that is non-public or internal data. Examples of institutional data include official university records, financial reports, unofficial student records, de-identified research data.
Restricted: data that is confidential or restricted due to personal privacy considerations or compliance regulations and laws. Examples include student transcripts, identifiable human subjects research data, full-face photographic images or videos, financial aid data.
Critical: data that has the most stringent legal or regulatory requirements and requires special security controls. Examples include data governed by HIPAA (personal health information), Social Security Numbers (SSNs), credit card information (PCI), personal identifiers (passport/driver's license numbers), data governed by ITAR (export-controlled).
IMPORTANT:
- Because the classification of Critical data depends on the specific data points involved, consultation with it-security@uiowa.edu or research-computing@uiowa.edu is required.
- PCI data should not be stored on any of the services listed below. If you are working with PCI data, please contact the IT Security Office.
- If you need to store SSNs, please work with the IT Security Office to determine the best storage location.
Legend
| Permitted | |
| Consultation Required. Please contact IT-Security@uiowa.edu or Research-Computing@uiowa.edu | |
| Not Permitted |