How can you keep your volunteers' personal information safe during online training?

2 Educate your volunteers

Your volunteers need to know how to protect their own personal information when they access your online training platform. Provide them with clear and simple guidelines on how to create strong passwords, avoid phishing scams, use secure networks, and log out after each session. Remind them not to share their login credentials, personal details, or training materials with anyone else. Encourage them to report any suspicious or unauthorized activity on the platform to you or the platform provider.

3 Limit access and permissions

You don't want anyone who is not authorized to see or edit your volunteers' personal information. To prevent unauthorized access and misuse, you need to limit who can access and manage your online training platform. Assign different roles and permissions to your staff, trainers, and volunteers based on their needs and responsibilities. For example, you may want to give your staff full access to create and edit courses, your trainers partial access to view and grade assignments, and your volunteers read-only access to complete their training. You can also use password protection, multi-factor authentication, or access codes to restrict access to certain courses or modules.

4 Update and backup regularly

Keeping your online training platform updated and backed up is essential for maintaining its security and functionality. Updates often include bug fixes, security patches, and new features that can improve your platform's performance and protection. Backups ensure that you have a copy of your data in case of any loss, damage, or corruption. You should update your platform whenever there is a new version available, and backup your data at least once a week or more frequently depending on your usage. You can also use cloud-based platforms that offer automatic updates and backups.

5 Delete or anonymize data when necessary

You don't need to keep your volunteers' personal information forever. In fact, keeping it longer than necessary may increase the risk of data breaches, identity theft, or legal issues. You should delete or anonymize your volunteers' data when they complete their training, leave your organization, or request to do so. Deleting data means removing it permanently from your platform and any other devices or storage media. Anonymizing data means removing any identifying information from it, such as names, emails, or phone numbers. You can also use encryption or pseudonymization techniques to make data unreadable or untraceable.