ITS will be removing Spirion from university-owned computers.

Spirion (formerly Identity Finder) is security software that is generally deployed on university-owned workstations and that periodically searches for locally stored files that contain Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as Social Security numbers, passport information, and drivers’ license identifiers.  Its primary purpose was to reduce institutional risk of data loss, but this was dramatically diminished when we began encrypting all hard drives.  Additionally, the software causes performance issues when actively scanning, and we have received complaints about this negative effect.  ITS continues to discourage storing PII on workstations, but we no longer believe that Spirion provides a benefit commensurate with its impact and cost.  ITS will remove Spirion from centrally supported workstations starting July 27, 2020.  We are reviewing alternatives to Spirion for future deployment but will be targeting their use to only those critical areas that have substantive amounts of PII data as a normal part of their operation.

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