UCU: Out-sourcing of IT information and support

Motion

Motion text: Congress recognises that the education sector is under increasing pressure to out-source aspects of IT provision.
Cloud computing (storing your data, out-sourced, around the world), rather than in-house, and free webmail result in lost control and increased hacking attempts while the legal position of the privacy of the data is not clear. By keeping our data and email in house, we keep the jobs, the support, the control and the legal privacy rights.
Congress calls on the NEC to produce guidance and campaigning materials, in conjunction with the academic related staff committee, on protecting our electronic privacy, including provision of:
Advice & resources on the regulations surrounding data privacy,
Sample data & email privacy policies that provide clear, transparent, fair treatment of all staff's data and email privacy
Campaigning tools to resist IT out-sourcing that include the issues of privacy
Evidence of the decrease in service quality when IT jobs are out-sourced