The Purge: Part Four
The Purge project aims to take a look at the email retention policies of state agencies and offices beyond the Governor's, but the Governor's office policy of deleting every seven days continues to drive additional questions.
See Kuff and Vince for some of their concerns.
The Star-Telegram reports the policy will stay in effect:
Just asking for government records triggers a requirement that they be preserved, so Perry has temporarily halted the automatic erasures to give staffers time to comply with the request, officials said. Once that happens, and after installing more sophisticated computer software, [Perry spokesman Robert] Black said Perry will resume enforcement of a seven-day retention schedule for e-mail.The Governor's office has argued that it creates too much electronic clutter to save everything, and that redacting emails when they're requested is laborious, since they can only redact hard copies.
"There might be other exceptions to the PIA that we must assert, thus making redacting necessary. Our office can only redact hard copies of the documents," Perry Asst. General Counsel Chelsea Thornton wrote.
But the Texas Department of Transportation, TXDOT -- is doing what the Governor's office says cannot be done. The open-records-crusader, John Washburn, pointed me to TXDOT's testimonial on the website of its consultant, Messaging Architects. Not only does TXDOT keep its emails, it can electronically search and sort them from its archives.
As a state agency, TxDOT needs to be compliant to the Texas Public Information Act, which was designed to provide access to public information, including email messages and other electronically delivered documents. To fulfill this requirement in the most cost-effective way, TxDOT needed an enterprise-class solution capable of processing over 11,000 GroupWise mailboxes while also providing quick and easy access to the contents of archived mailboxes. In addition, given the scope of the project, access to expert-level GroupWise technical support in the deployment phase was seen as a priority.It seems even TXDOT -- an agency roundly criticized for its secrecy -- has found a permanent home for its emails in order to comply with the TPIA.
Comments
As a professional records manager I think it is great that your shining a light on the records management practices of the governor's office as well as other state agencies.
BUT out of curiosity does KVUE have a records management policy in place along with an approved records retention schedule. Who at KVUE is responsible for the records management program?
thanks
Posted by: Peterk | November 15, 2007 7:37 PM
I'm very happy to see that TxDOT has made strides in this area, and they should be well served by the steps that they have undertaken.
Peterk has a point in asking what KVUE does. While many taxpayers expect our public sector agencies and officials to manage email in a manner that protects the public interest, we often fail to understand that those in the private sector have obligations to their shareholders and to the regulatory bodies that impact their operations. Thus, this topic is far more than an issue of public policy.
Given that, I hope that the Governor's office will reconsider its current policies and will turn to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and to others for guidance in establishing policies and procedures that protect the Office of the Governor and that protect the public interest.
Douglas P. Allen, CRM, CDIA+
Posted by: Douglas P Allen, CRM, CDIA+ | November 16, 2007 11:52 AM