# Privacy and PII/PHI Protection Awareness Course (Self-Paced) Canonical URL: ## Overview A foundational privacy course for the whole federal workforce, written to be government-wide and agency-neutral so it works for any agency without customization. Learners move from the legal foundations through practical identification and safeguarding, and finish on incident response and individual responsibility. The course is built around recognition rather than recitation: interactive categorization exercises and scenario-based practice activities build the judgment to tell ordinary personal information from sensitive personal information from protected health information, and to work a breach response in the right order. Modules close with practice checks, and the graded final covers all five modules proportionally. The part that sets this apart is its treatment of protected health information. PHI is usually treated as a clinical concern, so most federal privacy training skips it entirely. This course covers where ordinary, non-clinical federal staff actually run into it: occupational health files, leave and accommodation documentation, employee assistance referrals, and workers' compensation claims. ## What you'll learn - Explain the purpose and key requirements of the Privacy Act of 1974 and related federal privacy guidance - Define and correctly identify PII and PHI across a range of federal work contexts - Apply the Fair Information Practice Principles to everyday work activities - Describe required administrative, physical, and technical safeguards for handling, storing, and transmitting sensitive information - Identify the steps required to report and respond to a suspected or confirmed privacy incident or breach - Recognize individual roles and responsibilities in maintaining a culture of privacy protection ## Curriculum #### Module 1 - Foundations of Federal Privacy Law: purpose, scope, and history of the Privacy Act of 1974 - The key terms record, system of records, individual, and routine use - Individual rights of access, amendment, and accounting of disclosures - The Fair Information Practice Principles - System of Records Notices and Privacy Impact Assessments - How the Privacy Act relates to FOIA #### Module 2 - Identifying and Categorizing Personally Identifiable Information: defining PII - Standalone versus linked and linkable PII - Sensitive PII requiring enhanced safeguards - PII confidentiality impact levels - Where PII shows up in HR, travel, payroll, case management, email, and shared drives #### Module 3 - Protected Health Information in the Federal Workplace: defining PHI and how it differs from general PII - The federal health privacy regulatory framework - The HIPAA identifiers and how they combine with health data - Where non-clinical federal staff encounter PHI - The minimum necessary standard and need-to-know access #### Module 4 - Safeguarding Information and Responding to Privacy Incidents: administrative, physical, and technical safeguards - Safe storage, transmission, printing, and disposal - Removable media and telework precautions - What counts as an incident versus a breach - The federal breach-response lifecycle from discovery through remediation - Why prompt reporting matters even for minor or accidental incidents #### Module 5 - Roles, Responsibilities, and Privacy in Practice: the Senior Agency Official for Privacy, Privacy Officer, Information System Security Officer, supervisors, and individual employees - Everyday responsibilities - Remote work and mobile device considerations - Consequences of noncompliance - Where to go for help ## Pricing **Tuition:** $675