IUSD has restricted students from sending or receiving Google Drive files from most nondistrict email addresses to protect students against cyberbullying, phishing scams and inappropriate content.
The new policy applies to all emails and external share requests sent from email addresses not ending in @iusd.org, with the exception of emails coming from approved educational domains such as Irvine Valley College. Now, share links are usable only by accounts from the file owner’s school. For performing arts co-technical director and senior Aditi Gupta, this means being unable to access the theatre Drive or email during school hours.
“Before, I could log in on the technical director’s [external] account and share the docs that I needed to work on to my IUSD account so I could work on it on my [school] Chromebook,” Gupta said. “It’s unfair that IUSD is restricting students from accessing their personal account [files] from their IUSD account. It’s a detriment to people that only use a [school] Chromebook because they can’t do anything else.”
While IUSD acknowledges this inconvenience, the changes followed an uptick in file sharing abuses. According to IUSD Tech Support Assistant Director Scott Bennett, students last year used anonymous personal Google accounts to harass peers on IUSD documents shared outside the district. Cybercriminals also faked job application Google Forms, originating outside IUSD, to phish students’ banking details.
“Unfortunately, we had a number of students fall victim to this type of scam and we had to hand off further investigation to Irvine [Police Department],” Bennett said. “This type of attack has become a common trend across many school districts in California and the attacks have not stopped.”
IUSD will also be taking additional security measures, including a mandatory password reset for all seventh to 12th graders this fall. This is meant to reduce hacking, impersonation and harassment by having students create a password more complex than IUSD’s default version.
The district will also implement an exception for graduating seniors, allowing ownership transfers of school Drive files to personal accounts in the spring. Alternatively, Google Takeout allows students to selectively download folders within their IUSD Drive at any time.
More information, tech support and details of IUSD’s tech policies are available at support.iusd.org.
