Access to User Accounts Policy

ITSC provides a wide range of central IT services (including email, teaching tools, document storage and many more). To use these computing services, a user account (ITSC Network Account) is required. User accounts are provided to individuals for granted use of University IT services. 

The University will respect and provide reasonable privacy to users and will not access information contained and accessible by these user accounts. However, the University reserves the right to access and review all information accessible by users accounts as deemed necessary, in its sole judgement, and without prior notice to the user of the account. Example of such circumstances, includes when:

  • Ensuring continuity of operations during unavailability of a User unexpectedly or for a prolong period
  • To assist in identification, diagnose and rectification on security vulnerabilities and problems to prevent possible damages that may be caused to the University and other Users
  • To assist investigations to a possible violation of law or University policy
  • To comply with information request of government bodies with a valid warrant or court orders

Under circumstances when a staff is unexpectedly unavailable to receive or respond to emails, for the purpose of sustaining a legitimate operational need, the corresponding department of the staff may make request to ITSC (cchelp@ust.hk), with the endorsement of Department head or Director, or equivalent, to enable an “Out of Office” message from the staff’s email account.