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web-link administrators – good practice

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, we’re obliged to make sure that personal information used to support the admissions process is only accessed by authorised persons.

Posted Thu 2 June 2016

You can help us with this by adhering to the following good practice when creating web-link accounts:

Account management 

  • Make sure you have a process to delete web-link accounts when employees leave the organisation, or change roles and no longer require an account.
  • Review web-link accounts regularly to monitor this process, and delete any missed accounts. Amend the process as necessary.
  • Create individual user accounts – avoid using generic accounts. 
  • Consider suspending web-link accounts if employees are under investigation, or subject to disciplinary proceedings.

web-link users – passwords

  • When creating a web-link account, use a strong password – ideally 14 characters or more. Use non-dictionary words that cannot be easily guessed.
  • Make sure your password includes a mixture of numbers, upper and lower case letters, and at least one special character (e.g. !, £, *). 
  • Don’t use passwords that can be easily linked to an individual, or set the password as your provider name or department. 
  • Do not write passwords down. 
Use password strength checkers to test how strong your password is – the Open University’s password checker is a useful tool.