Lost or Stolen Devices
What to Do If Your Computer, Tablet, or Smartphone is Stolen or Lost
Whenever a computer or mobile device is stolen or lost, there are two areas of concern:
- The loss of a physical asset
- The potential exposure of sensitive information that either may be stored on the device or may be accessible by default by anyone who has physical access to the device
Today’s mobility and use of personal devices to connect to College e-mail and systems have resulted in business data finding itself on personally owned devices as well. Even though a vast majority of organizations discourage having business data on personally owned devices, we cannot assume that we need to focus only on College-owned devices when devising computer loss/theft strategies.
If your device is stolen or lost, perform the following as soon as you realize the equipment is missing:
- Contact LITS as soon as possible and identify any College information accessed or held on the device and any other removable media that may have also been lost. Provide the location where the device was lost and asset information if possible.
- Report the incident to the police department of the community where the incident took place. If on-campus, contact Campus Safety. When you report to the police, having a serial number and other unique identifiers can be crucial for investigations.
- Change all passwords used on the device to access Trinity College resources.
- If it is a college-owned computer, the Library & Information Technology Services division will determine if tracking software is installed on the computer. If it is, LITS Technical Services staff will take the necessary steps to activate the alert process through the tracking company.
- Cell phones and tablets synchronizing email and calendar events with Trinity’s Exchange server must be remotely wiped of all data to prevent access by anyone other than the user. Users can complete this process personally.
If a college-owned device is recovered, it can be re-provisioned by LITS.
