UBIT Policy: Log Data Access and Retention Policy

Category: Information Technology

Responsible Office: Office of the Vice President and Chief Information Officer

Responsible Executive: Vice President and Chief Information Officer (VPCIO)

Date Established: July 14, 2010

Date Updated: July 30, 2019

On this page:

Summary

This departmental policy identifies the access and retention rules for log data stored on central servers and networked equipment managed by the VPCIO organization.

Policy Statement

The VPCIO organization follows the retention guidelines found in the Guidelines for Retention of Security Log Data. Log access is restricted to University at Buffalo Information Technology staff.  Log data may be provided to non-UBIT staff for litigation holds, FOIL requests, and security investigations.  Log data may also be provided to non-UBIT staff for other university administrative purposes, as approved by the VPCIO organization.

Principles for destruction of log data

  • Destroy original, backups, and copies of log data once the retention period is satisfied
  • Do not back up log data to removable media
  • Exclude log data from computer disk images
  • Delete log data as opposed to log entries

Applicability

This departmental policy applies to log data on central servers and networked equipment managed by the VPCIO area.

Definitions

Log Data

Records of individual events that have happened in a system. They are vital for systems troubleshooting and analysis. For example, web servers automatically save usage and activity information such as the date, time, IP address, HTTP status, bytes sent and bytes received.

Responsibility

Vice President and Chief Information Officer

  • Approves, or appoints a designee to approve, requests for access to log data.

Director, Enterprise Infrastructure Services

  • Manages log data stored on central servers and networked equipment in the VPCIO area.

Contact Information

Office of the Vice President and Chief Information Officer
517 Capen Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: 716-645-7979
Email: cio@buffalo.edu
Website: http://www.buffalo.edu/ubit.html

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