Following SUNY guidelines, this protocol is established as part of the Access Control Security Domain. Background Standards and procedures governed by the principle of “least privilege” and employing industry-accepted access control and authorization frameworks to ensure that external and internal computer applications and persons have only such access as is appropriate to information resources, and to facilities and devices containing and displaying information. Why We use BitLocker BitLocker is used at SUNY Cobleskill as our industry-accepted access control. This is a very important security measure that ensures if the mobile device goes missing that the files on the unit will not be accessed without the correct BitLocker pin. Under this policy, all data must be encrypted in transit both physically and in network communications. Each State-owned machine will have its' own BitLocker key, this key is meant to be unique to each unit so if the mobile device was lost/stolen there would be no random pin guessing. BitLocker is to be used on any machines in which information is stored on a "Need-to-know" basis or contains any student information that could be perceived as Identifiers. What Does BitLocker Do BitLocker is a software that encrypts a hard drive so that anyone that is not registered to know the BitLocker pin may not have access to that particular unit. Encryption refers to the process whereby plain text is converted into humanly un-decipherable text by the application of an encryption algorithm. State Policy Link https://its.ny.gov/sites/default/files/documents/nys-s14-007_encryption_standard_2.pdf