As mobile devices become smaller, faster, more powerful and less expensive, they also become much easier to lose, misplace or steal. While low costs make these devices easy to purchase and replace, their increased storage capacities can lead to huge data breaches if the information stored on them and the devices themselves are not properly secured. Laptop computers are the number one theft item in the United States, with approximately 1,800 stolen per day across the country. Recent laptop thefts in the institutions of the University of Texas System have pointed out the need to properly protect the devices and more importantly, the data stored on them, data entrusted to us to manage and to secure properly. Since this has become an issue of great importance, the Chancellor and the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System have mandated that all university-owned laptops, regardless of their use, are to be encrypted. In some cases, some older devices may not support encryption and will have to be replaced. Please use the encryption guidelines below as a checklist to determine if your device can be encrypted and to ensure your device is ready for the encryption to be installed. This directive has also been extended to those personally-owned laptops that perform work on behalf of the university or that store university data.
