When portable devices are lost or stolen, the data stored on them is easily read unless the disks are hardware encrypted. Almost all portable devices will contain some confidential data e.g. letters, spreadsheets and emails that have been read and cached on the device. Once encrypted, the logon details of the owner’s account are used to encrypt the whole disk and without a successful logon by the owner the disk is unreadable. The system also provides a secure method to recover the system if the password is forgotten. All portable devices automatically have FileVault disk encryption enabled when the system is next restarted after the initial setup.

Once the disk is fully encrypted and you would like to know your individual FileVault recovery key email itsupport@physics.ox.ac.uk and we will let you know the recovery key.