Identifying Restricted and Confidential Material

Your office is responsible for identifying sensitive or confidential material within your files. Examples of such material include:

• class lists with grades or annotations about individual students;
• letters of recommendation for students, faculty or staff;
• employment records containing confidential data about salary or personal matters;
• patient records; and
• information about gifts and donors.

Note: Improper release of confidential information could have legal ramifications for the University and staff involved. By clearly identifying confidential materials at the time of transfer in the appropriate place on the Transmittal form, you help the Archives apply its policies and procedures for restricted materials as described below.

It is the policy of the Archives to deny access to official University records to any researcher from outside of the transferring office unless

1. the transferring office declares the records open at the time of transfer on the Transmittal form, or
2. the researcher obtains the written permission of an authorized representative of the transferring office to view the records.

If only partial contents of individual files are confidential or restricted, this material should be removed from the file and placed in a folder with the same label as the original. (If the contents of an entire folder are restricted, remove the entire folder.) The new folders should be marked "RESTRICTED" and placed together at the end of the material being transferred. Boxes containing restricted material should be so labeled.