Records Management Reality Jodi Cramer AF/JAA 29 March 2017
Records are based on the information not the medium. Federal Records Act What is a Record? “records”— includes all recorded information, regardless of form or characteristics, made or received by a Federal agency under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business and preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the United States Government or because of the informational value of data in them; (44 U.S.C. 3301) Records are based on the information not the medium.
Transitory Temporary Permanent Types of Records Records that can be deleted upon receipt as they have no value Example – “do you want to go to lunch?” Transitory Records that have value but are not transferred to NARA as part of the permanent history of the US. Records can be kept up to 100 years as temporary records. Most of our records fit in this category and are governed by the disposition schedules. Temporary Records that are important to this history of the US. These records are kept at the Agency for a period of time then transferred to NARA. Permanent
FOIA What is a Record: A record is anything either created or obtained by an agency; and under Agency control at the time of the FOIA request DoD Contractor records may be Agency records Emails/draft records are Agency records 5 USC 552(f)(2)(A)
Responsive Records under FOIA Includes audio and video Includes records contained in electronic databases (generating a report is not creating a record) Documents in storage Draft documents and emails kept on your computer
eDiscovery What is record (ESI)? Electronically Stored Information (ESI) includes “writings, drawings, graphs, charts, photographs, sound recordings, images, and other data or data compilations—stored in any medium from which information can be obtained either directly or, if necessary, after translation by the responding party into a reasonably usable form” FRCP 34(a) Common forms of ESI are e-mails and attachments; webpages and databases; electronic word processing files, spreadsheets and presentations; digital sound files, images and graphics. Located on servers, networks, desk tops, lap tops, home computers, backup drives, and other portable storage media devices such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), mobile phones, and “smart” phones.
Records Management Web 2.0 applications create Federal Records Especially applications on a .mil,.gov site or on a third party site created by the Agency (some .org). As such, these sites are subject to FOIA, E-discovery, and Federal Records Act. Agencies need to create or insure the existence of records schedules for web 2.0 media. Until then they must retain all web 2.0 posts.
NARA GRS 6.4 Rule 20 Public correspondence and communications not requiring formal action. Records related to correspondence and communications, including comments, to and from the public that require no formal response or action. Includes: • comments the agency receives but does not act upon or that do not require a response, such as: o write-in campaigns o personal opinions on current events or personal experiences o routine complaints or commendations o anonymous communications o suggestion box comments o public correspondence addressed to another entity and copied to the agency or that the agency receives in error
NARA GRS 6.4 Rule 20 o comments posted by the public on an agency website that do not require response or that the agency does not collect for further use • communications from the public that the agency responds to but takes no formal action on • agency postings on social media accounts and email blasts that consist of information released or captured elsewhere, provided the agency also captures the posting
NARA GRS 6.4 Rule 20 Temporary: Destroy when 90 days old, but longer retention is authorized if required for business use. https://www.archives.gov/files/records-mgmt/grs/grs06-4.pdf
AF WAY AHEAD Air Force has adopted Rule 20 into our RDS at: Table 35-1 Rule 30 and 31
Questions THANK YOU!