Access to files of users leaving a project

During annual renewals, you may indicate that some of your sponsored users will not continue as a part of your research team. This may lead to the deactivation of their accounts, which may in turn restrict your ability to access their files. Because intellectual property rules vary depending on the situation, we do not assume that the sponsor is allowed to access files owned or produced by the sponsored user (even in places where you might control a filesystem quota). Consent from that user may be required for you to access them. If you need access to such files, it is important to make arrangements with your sponsored user as soon as possible, to mitigate the risk of a former sponsored user becoming incommunicado.

If you may need to access files owned or produced by such users, please take appropriate actions before deactivating their accounts.

Here are some actions you should take while you are still in contact with a leaving user:

• Ask the student to identify any data that should be archived and burn them onto a DVD, copy them to a portable USB drive, or to your own account on an Alliance system. Lots of copies keep stuff safe!
• On the other hand, storage is limited and can be expensive. Once the vital data has been secured, ask the student to delete everything that can reasonably be deleted.
• If there is anything you have good reason to keep on Alliance storage systems, move it from the sponsored user's account to your own before they leave. If the user becomes incommunicado, intellectual property rules may delay or even forbid us from moving data from their account to your own. IP rules vary from institution to institution. Become familiar with your own.
• If there are many such files, ask the student to compress them first with tar, czf , zip, or some other such tool. If you need help with tar or with directory access permissions, contact technical support.

The Alliance's policy is that files associated with expired accounts may be removed after one year.