Secure emails

The council takes information security very seriously and ensures its email system is configured in accordance with all recommended government standards.

OME – our standard secure email system

Our standard secure email system is called Office 365 Message Encryption (OME). Users and organisations use this when they need to decrypt sensitive emails received from us.

Sensitive emails sent with a [CONFIDENTIAL] label at the council end automatically encrypt the email when leaving our systems.

Recipients then need to decrypt the email, by either requesting a 'one-time passcode' or signing into a Microsoft or Google account (if they have one).

Read more in our guide: Sending and receiving encrypted emails.

TLS – our enhanced secure email system

Our enhanced system, Transport Layer Security (TLS), sets up a secure connection between us and your organisation. It means that recipients do not need to decrypt sensitive emails.

Once a TLS connection is set up between the council and your organisation, secure emails can be sent just like normal emails because the connection between us is guaranteed secure. TLS is a government-recommended standard and is free to implement.

If you can supply us with contact details of the IT provider who supports your email services, we can work with them to configure the TLS connection.

Read more about how your organisation can implement TLS email on the National Cyber Security website.

Contact details

Email cyber.security@westsuffolk.gov.uk if you would like any more information about how we manage secure emails.