TWU Pass

TWU Pass was designed to simplify your use of the TWU website by allowing you to login once, with one username and password, to gain access to all of TWU's online services. At the same time, we are doing our best to keep your personal information secure, protecting you from online identity theft. This document outlines how we protect and share your information and also provides information on how you can do your part to protect your identity.

What is Identity Theft?

Identity theft is frauduelent use of personal information, such as a Student ID or a password. It has become such a problem on the Internet that several countries, including Canada and the United States, have set up resource websites to help protect the identities of their citizens.

For more information, see:

• Privacy Commissioner of Canada's website: http://www.privcom.gc.ca/
  Under "Information for Individuals," you will find plenty of helpful material on how to protect your privacy.
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission's website on Identity Theft: http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft/

Steps You Can Take

To protect your TWU Pass account information, always make sure that you are using the official TWU Pass website. You can check this by making sure that the address in your web browser starts with https://pass.twu.ca/ or http://www3.twu.ca/twupass/. If it does not, don't submit your username or password or it may go to a website that wants to steal your login information. If you have any questions or find a suspicious website, feel free to contact the TWU Pass administrator.

How We Collect and Use Information

When you sign up for a TWU Pass account, we collect your first and last name, your email address, and your birthdate to create an account for you to subsequently log in to TWU Pass. If you are part of the TWU community, we may ask for additional information in order to link your account with existing information in our databases. This allows us to offer more services appropriate for you.

Information Linked to Your Account

If you are not part of the TWU community, the only information linked to your account is:

• Your first name and last name
• Your email address
• Your birthdate (for identification and age verification)
• A "PersonID" that uniquely identifies you

For people inside the TWU community, more information may be linked via the "Person ID," which is also known as a Student ID, but applies to non-students as well.

Information Shared by TWU Pass

TWU Pass shares information in two ways. For TWU Websites, TWU Pass shares your name, email address, and PersonID with trusted TWU-based websites, allowing you to log in quickly and easily. For sites outside of TWU's control, TWU Pass can be used as an OpenID provider, but the only information that is passed along is your OpenID URL, which may contain your first and last name. (You have the option to share your name and email address when you log in to the external site, but that is left to your discretion.)

How We Protect Your Information

Storage Protection

For your protection, your password is stored in an encrypted form so that it cannot be retrieved even by the TWU Pass administrator. The rest of your information is stored in a protected database.

Login Failure Protection

If you (or someone impersonating you) type an incorrect username and password combination, this is recorded in our security logs. Multiple failures are automatically flagged and appropriate actions are taken, depending on the type of failure. If your account appears to be under attack, it will be locked for a set amount of time or until you contact the TWU Pass administrator.

Transmission Protection

Every time you log in and every time your personal information is sent between servers, it is encrpyted using SSL, the encryption standard for the Web. This means that hackers potentially scanning the networks will not be able to read any important TWU Pass data sent between computers.

See Also

The TWU Privacy Policy

• When you sign in to TWU Pass, make sure you're on the real TWU Pass website.
  • Check your web address (URL) - it should always start with https://pass.twu.ca/ or https://www3.twu.ca/twupass/
  • If you're not on https://pass.twu.ca/ or https://www1.twu.ca/, you may have found a "phishing" website. Please report the web address (URL) on the help desk.
  • If you get a certificate warning, it means a website is trying to pretend to be TWU Pass - don't enter your username or password
• TWU Pass will help you create a password that's hard to guess. Keep your password safe - avoid writing it down unless you're going to store it in a locked location.
• For extra security, you can use an OpenID provider like myVidoop or myOpenID to sign you in without a username and password. (It's actually safer without a regular password!) After you set up your account, use the OpenID sign in tab to do this.
• It's best not to save your password into your web browser's password manager because anyone with physical access to your computer could get your password. (Browsers store passwords in a form that is typically easy to hack by someone physically using your computer.)

Categories:Basics | Signing Up | Email Issues | Usernames & Passwords | Cookies

Basics

Q: "What is TWU Pass?"
Like a ski pass or lift ticket gets you access to the slopes, TWU Pass allows you to use many web services from Trinity Western University. It provides you with one login name and password to use at all TWU websites, allowing you to Sign In once to gain access to many resources, such as CLC's Job Search and Financial Aid.

Signing Up

Q: "I'm applying to come to TWU. How do I set up an account?"
You can set up your account before you arrive at TWU simply by providing your email address and name: go to Create Account.

Email Issues

Q: "I'm waiting for an email message from TWU Pass, but it's been more than an hour. What happened?"
There are three common causes that prevent message from making it to you: 1) The email address has a typo, 2) Your email box is full, and 3) Your email account is rejecting messages sent from our address. If you think that you've typed the wrong address, contact the TWU Pass Administrator to fix it. If you have a lot of email stored on your email server, try deleting a few messages from it and then contact the TWU Pass Administrator. If you have email blocking turned on, please make sure that it allows messages from "@twu.ca" to go through into your Inbox and then contact the TWU Pass Administrator.

Q: "When I used the Lost Password page, two passwords were sent to me. Which one should I use?"
This may be because you clicked the Send Password button twice. It doesn't cause a problem, but you will get two different passwords because TWU Pass gives you a new password each time. (This is for added security so that your previous password is never sent out to anyone—including you or someone pretending to be you.) Solution: use the password most recently sent to you because all others are overwritten with the new one and they are no longer valid.

Usernames and Passwords

Q: "My twuNAME (username) and password don't work. What's going on?"
Make sure that you're using the twuNAME and password that TWU Pass most recently sent to you by email. If you continue to have problems or if forgotten your password, request a new password on the Lost Password page. Every time you use that page, your old password is replaced and the new password is sent, so be sure to use the most recent one.

Q: "I forgot my twuNAME and/or password. What should I do?"
If you still remember (and have access to) the email address you registered with TWU Pass, you can use the Lost Password page to have your username and password sent to you.

Q: "I got a message saying my account is locked or disabled. What does that mean?"
When you (or someone else) tries to Sign In to your account with the wrong password several times in a row, TWU Pass automatically locks your account for a few minutes. After several more failed attempts TWU Pass disables your account, preventing hackers from trying to guess your password. While your account is disabled (or time-locked), nobody will be able to Sign In on your account. The only way to undisable your account is to contact the TWU Pass administrator.

Q: "Why do I have to wait three minutes to get a new password?"
TWU Pass prevents multiple back-to-back requests for new passwords via the Lost Password form to keep the process of getting a new password simpler and more secure. You usually will see this message only if you try to click the "Send Password" button more than once while you're waiting for your password to be sent to you.

Q: "Why won't TWU Pass remember my password like other sites?"
In order to provide you with better security, you must type your password each time you log in to TWU Pass. This is to prevent others from being able to log in automatically under your account, especially on kiosk computers since they are shared with the general public.

Cookies

Q: "Do I need cookies enabled to use TWU Pass?"
Yes, to give you the most flexibility in using TWU Pass, TWU Pass uses cookies to determine if you have signed in. No personal information is stored in the cookie, just "session" information, which is automatically deleted when you close your browser.

Q: "How do I enable cookies in my browser?"
If you're using Internet Explorer 6, go to the Tools menu and click Internet Options. Click the Privacy tab and set the level to Medium High or just Medium. (If you set it to Block All Cookies or High, TWU Pass will not work and any settings lower than Medium are not recommended.) If you are using any other browser, search Help for "cookies."