Office Privacy Policy

Access to the personally assigned offices, spaces, vehicles, tools and equipment, furniture or storage areas of NIU faculty (including emeriti), staff, or student employees is normally based on business need, balanced respect, common sense, common decency, and civility. Subject to established principles for stewardship  of publicly owned resources, faculty, staff, and student employees are accorded the privilege of reasonable privacy with regard to their immediate university workplaces.

Representatives of the university may access its offices and all other areas for official reasons such as efficient operation, cleaning, inspections, repairs, maintenance, safety, security, property inventories and other similar business or operational purposes. These accesses should entail minimized intrusion to the operations of such areas. Except for routine cleaning, other limited accesses, or for emergencies, faculty, staff, and student employees will be provided notification  of such access and, whenever practical, notification will precede access. In addition, the affected faculty or staff member or student employee will be offered an  opportunity to be present during access, unless circumstances prevent it or make it impractical or unsafe. After an emergency access the office occupant will be notified in a timely manner about the reason for the access and the actions taken unless there are compelling reasons why this cannot be done.

Faculty and staff members are responsible for securing and clearly labeling any sensitive or confidential material, and are responsible for their own personal  property.

Questions concerning application of this procedure may be addressed to the university privacy officer at 753-8364.