Flash Drives and External Hard Drives

Last Updated: August 26, 2024 10:20 am

OASIS IRB Support

Storing research data on a flash drive or external hard drive is a common way to store data so that it can be portable. It could be that you need to conveniently move your data between a field computer and an office computer, or because you might use it as a backup of your research data.

Security-wise there are two things you need to do when using a flash drive or external hard drive. The first is that the drive must be data encrypted, and the second is that after the conclusion of your research or once the data stored on the drive are no longer needed, whichever comes first, the drive is wiped clean of data, or sanitized.

Requirements