Many of the documents that the Financial Aid & Scholarships office requests contain highly sensitive information like your name, address, Social Security numbers, how much money you earn, and where you bank. If that data falls into the wrong hands, you could end up being a victim of identity theft. It is important to protect your information by sending any sensitive information on documents in the most secure and reliable way possible. It can be tempting to simply email the necessary information, but that's not the best idea.
When asked to provide sensitive tax documents by the Financial Aid & Scholarships office, we recommend that you:
- Make copies of your tax documents
- Write your student ID on the copy you are sending to our office
- Deliver you documents in one of the three ways:
- Drop them off in-person at the Enrollment Center (Sage Hall, Room 1020)
- Send them by mail (Attn: Financial Aid & Scholarships, CSU Channel Islands, One University Drive, Camarillo, CA 93012)
- Scan and email them as an encrypted attachment (see below for instructions) to financial.aid@csuci.edu
How to create an encrypted attachment to send to CSU Channel Islands
There are many applications that have the ability to encrypt attachments. An example is provided below for WinZip™, with the caveat that this is not the only acceptable method, and unless very carefully configured, WinZip would not fit the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) which is defined by FIPS 140-2.
WinZip instructions for file/folder encryption and password protection
- Open a folder to the location of the file(s)/folder(s) that you wish to encrypt.
- Select the file(s)/folder(s) that you wish to encrypt. Note that in order to select more than one file/folder, you must press the “Ctrl” key on the keyboard while selecting them.
- Right-click over one of the selected items, select WinZip.
- From the submenu that appears, select “Add to Zip File.”
- In the “Add Files” dialog box, specify a ‘File name’ and ‘Destination’ (location) for the finished Zip file.
- Select “.Zip” as the Compression Type.
- Under Encryption, check the “Encrypt files” box.
- Click the “Add” button.
- A pop-up window may appear saying “You should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the various encryption methods before using this feature. Please press the F1 key for more information, particularly if this is the first time you are using encryption.” Select the “OK” button to continue.
- In the “Enter Password” field, enter an appropriate password. Passwords must be at least eight characters and must contain at least one of each of the following: a lowercase character (a-z), an uppercase character (AZ), a number character (0-9), and a symbol character (!, @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, etc.).
- In the “Re-enter Password” field, enter the same password from Step #10, and remember the password for future reference.
- Click the “OK” button.
- A pop-up window may appear saying “Add Complete. Your files have been added. The files will be compressed and encrypted when saved.” Click the “OK” button to continue.
- The encrypted WinZip file should be in the location identified in Step #5 above and is now ready to be emailed.
- The password must not be included in the same message and should be included in a separate email to the intended user.