Confidentiality Policy

Confidentiality Policy for Committee Volunteers and Board Members:

Staples Tuition Grants (“STG”) Volunteers and Board members shall certify to a Chair that they have read this Confidentiality Policy and agree to abide by it at the commencement of their tenure on the Committee.

Respecting the privacy of STG applicants and their families, and donors and named award sponsors is a basic value of STG. Personal and financial information is confidential and applicants and their families, and donors and named award sponsors disclose this information to STG on the understanding that STG will maintain the confidentiality of their information. All confidential information received from applicants and their families, and donors and named award sponsors should not be disclosed or discussed with anyone other than the person who disclosed it to STG, or other members of the STG committee, without permission or authorization from a Chair of the Board. Care should also be taken to ensure that unauthorized individuals do not overhear any discussion of confidential information and that documents containing confidential information including without limitation any documents containing or summarizing applicant’s financial information are not left in the open, stored on any shared file space or otherwise disclosed outside of those volunteers on the STG committee who have a need to know the information. To the extent that any volunteer or board member stores any of the confidential information on their personal computer, the volunteer or board member shall be fully responsible for implementing and maintaining appropriate information security protocols which are prudent to ensure the confidentiality and non-disclosure of any STG related information consistent with this policy.

Volunteers and Board Members of STG may be exposed to information which is highly confidential in nature. It is the policy of STG that such information must be kept confidential both during the tenure of a volunteer or Board member’s service to STG and following their time on the committee. Volunteers and Board Members are expected to take all reasonable and prudent precautions to ensure the confidential treatment of all applicant information they receive during their tenure and are expected to return or confirm in writing to a Chair the permanent confidential destruction of all such information and any summary or reports created using such information as soon as their need to have such information ends, and in no event later than the end of their tenure on STG.

Unauthorized disclosure of confidential information is a serious violation of this policy and will subject the person(s) who made the unauthorized disclosure to appropriate discipline including removal from further participation in any role requiring access to confidential information or the termination of their volunteer service with STG.

Version 1.01, December 2018