Q. Is there a general guideline or recommendation for emailing confidential files?
A. It all depends on the level of confidentiality, however, email is NOT SECURE and if there are any concerns then files should NOT be emailed.
Q. How about if I send a password protected file and the password separately (to the same email account)?
A. If emailing password protected files, it would be better to separate the password transmission by sending the password to a different email account (from the one files are sent), or call and give the password over the phone.
Q. If the sender and recipient are both on the same university/utoronto.ca system, (a) is it more secure than if one address is an external account and; (b) is the password less of an issue/not required if both are utoronto.ca addresses?
A. If both Sender/Receiver are on the same university email system it can be a bit safer than external email accounts, but some users forward their UofT email to external email. So this does NOT guarantee any security and again Email is NEVER secure.
Q. What other options do I have?
A. If there is an on-going need for secure filesharing we offer the Sharefile account service. NOTE: The University is moving to Office 365 which will provide OneDrive for secure filesharing.
