New G Suite feature to help protect confidential data

To help us all minimize the possibility that we unintentionally share personally identifiable information, OIT will enable a new G Suite Data Loss Prevention feature on September 17.

What is personally identifiable information?

In their publication Information Security: Protecting Personally Identifiable Information, the United States Government Accountability Office defines Personal Identifiable Information (PII) as:

…information that can be used to locate or identify an individual, such as names, aliases, Social Security numbers, biometric records, and other personal information that is linked or linkable to an individual. Loss of such information may lead to identity theft (the wrongful obtaining and using of another person’s identifying information in some way that involves fraud or deception, typically for economic gain) or other fraudulent use of the information, resulting in substantial harm, embarrassment, and inconvenience to individuals.

In particular, PII includes data such as: 

• Social Security numbers 
• Credit card numbers  
• Passport numbers
• Driver’s license numbers

What will change?

Starting September 17, if Google detects personally identifiable information in a G Suite document at PSU, the Share button in the top right corner will change from its default blue to a green color, and will display a shield icon. In addition, when you hover over the Share button, you will see a “Document contains sensitive data” notice.

If you attempt to share the document with someone outside of the pdx.edu domain, you will be prompted with a warning and the option to “Cancel” or “Share anyway”.