The University of Iowa
Practice Related to Faculty/Staff Home Address and Telephone

CURRENT PRACTICE:

Upon hire, the new employee’s home address and telephone are restricted from publication on the white pages (web site) for the first two weeks of employment.  This provides the employee the opportunity to have the information continually restricted, accomplished by accessing the self service web site and selecting the restrict option for address and/or telephone during the first two weeks of employment.  The option to restrict or unrestrict home address and/or telephone also is available on self service beyond these first two weeks.  Restricting the information means it is neither published on the white pages nor in the University hard copy directory.  If the individual does not restrict the information within these first two weeks, it is published.

ACTION: 

A committee was formed to discuss this current default practice.  The committee had representation from University Human Resources, Faculty Senate, ITS, Office of the General Counsel, Office of the Provost, Staff Council, University Relations, two academic orgs, and three divisions.

RECOMMENDATION:

The default should be changed so that employee home address and telephone is continuously restricted, unless and until the employee elects to unrestrict one or both through the self service web site.

RATIONALE: 

• The availability of this information facilitates access to the information for illegitimate purposes such as personal harassment, stalking, identify theft, and targeting of individuals by organized groups.  Such actions could be taken against employees and/or their families.
• When the information is not restricted, and related problems per above arise, the options for remediation are extremely limited.  Often the damage is already done.
• Access to the information for legitimate business purposes is possible through assigned access to HRIS, which includes a pledge of confidentiality and use of the information for legitimate purposes only.
• Nearly one-half of our employees currently restrict home address and/or telephone from publication.  The balance of our employees may or may not have made a conscious choice about publication of the information, as they simply may not have given the topic due consideration.

IMPLEMENTATION:

Notify employees that all home address and telephone information will be restricted from publication as of a specified date.  Direct employees to access their self service web site if they wish to unrestrict either.  When employees access the self service web site for any purpose for the first time after the specified date, they will receive a message noting that the information is restricted and describing their options to unrestrict.