The quickest and easiest way to deal with this is to provide the course organiser with a list of passwords. We sometimes also provide Computing Service staff to assist at the first few practical sessions. Course organisers and CS staff should advise students to change their initial passwords at the earliest opportunity so that their accounts are secure. We are advised that we should only supply the password to the user and leave them to pass the information to the Computer Officer or whoever is helping them. This still leaves us with the problem of a secretary wanting a password for a Head of Institution or group.
Further information is available.
Although the Data Protection Act applies only to living individuals, there are other matters to consider. The executor or next of kin should be given access to the files or the files should be handed over to the appropriate person.