06. BigCatRescue.me and Workplace

The Workplace app is very similar to facebook and is comprised of several groups and pages. Keep up to date with all of the sanctuary and social updates as well as communicate with specific groups of volunteers using this app. The Important Updates group page must be checked every time you arrive to volunteer for important information regarding the cats and the sanctuary.

Important Updates: This page is mandatory reading prior to volunteering at the sanctuary each shift.  Updates include information regarding cat health, moves, or changes in care as well as critical safety, grounds and miscellaneous information.

Information Security Policy
Access to and participation in the BigCatRescue.me site and BCR Workplace is for current, active volunteers only. As an active volunteer, you will find everything you need on these two platforms to stay up to date with the events at the sanctuary, including training classes offered, tours and educational programs for the public for which you can volunteer, and most importantly, specific information about our cats that includes their daily feeding habits, their current state of health, and even dates, times, descriptions, and results of veterinary procedures. Through these two platforms, every volunteer truly has a finger on the pulse of all that goes on at Big Cat Rescue. All volunteers are required to abide by the following guidelines to insure that our information remains accurate, safe, and available to those who need it when they need it.

Passwords

You will be given a password to enter the BigCatRescue.me site and BCR Workplace when your volunteer status is officially approved. Please change this password as soon as possible to something that is meaningful to you but difficult for others to guess. The safest passwords are at least 8 characters long, contain a combination of upper-case and lower-case words, symbols, and numbers. Never share your password with anyone and never send it over e-mail. No one from Big Cat Rescue, Google, Workplace or any internet service provider would ask you for a password via e-mail. Compromised passwords are the easiest way for hackers to access and corrupt information on remote servers.

This is critical. The easiest way for unauthorized persons to access all of Big Cat Rescue’s information is to gain unsupervised access to a computer in which one of our authorized volunteers is signed in to the bigcatrescue.me site but isn’t there. Once on the site, s/he can not only access all of our information, but can also change it. It is very important to log out of BigCatRescue.me and BCR Workplace when not actively in use to prohibit unknown individuals from accessing our sites.

Printing E-mails

Do not print e-mail threads from our site unless it is really necessary, especially in public places. Printed e-mails that have been left on printers and computer workstations can compromise confidentiality. If you must print an e-mail, particularly in a public place such as work, school, or a library, retrieve it from the printer immediately and store it in a secure place.

Big Cat Rescue E-mail Address

Remember that your Big Cat Rescue e-mail address is like an electronic version of the volunteer logo on your volunteer shirt. When you use it, you are representing Big Cat Rescue. Please make sure that every e-mail you send from this address represents Big Cat Rescue accurately and positively and is written in a courteous and professional manner. You also represent all of the animals for whom Big Cat Rescue speaks. We often ask our volunteers to write e-mails to legislators and members of the media to speak on behalf of cats. While we are certainly proud of our volunteers and our efforts, we feel that these letters may have more impact if they are sent from an e-mail address other than your Big Cat Rescue address. If their in-boxes are flooded with e-mails coming from the same domain name, they may tend to lump all of them together and not really hear our individual messages. Your Big Cat Rescue e-mail address is best used for communicating internally with other volunteers, staff, and committee members on the site.

E-mail Security
Please keep in mind the nature of e-mail communication. Messages sent via e-mail pass through unregulated communications channels over which we have no control, are stored on remote servers, can be accessed by people that we don’t know, and can be retrieved by court order and used as legal evidence. Messages sent via e-mail can neither be retrieved nor erased. In the most practical sense, messages sent via e-mail should be considered both public and permanent.

Viruses

In terms of viruses and other technological issues that can corrupt information and make it unaccessible, e-mail is extremely insecure. Please practice good judgment when deciding whether to open e-mails and especially attachments.