At UCSF, our data powers our work in healthcare, research, education, and administration. In short, our data is everything to our mission of advancing health worldwide. Our data landscape is vast—we generate and handle lots of data—but should we treat it all the same way? Of course not. In the same way you share some information on Facebook and keep other information private, UCSF has different categories of information – and important rules to follow when handling them.

With data breaches happening every day it’s more important than ever to own your responsibility for using and protecting our data properly.

Protection Levels

UCSF's Data Classification Standard provides examples to help you determine the appropriate protection level for your data and resources. Understanding your data's protection level will help you determine the proper ways to securely store, print, share, and dispose of your data and information.

Availability Levels

UCSF data and resources are assigned one of four availability levels based on the level of business impact that their loss of availability or service would have on UCSF, with A4 causing major, high-level impact and A1 causing minimal impact.