From CBIA News, September/October 2002

Don’t forget e-mail

Experts say you need an electronic document retention policy that is coordinated with your paper document policy. If, for example, you would keep paper records related to a certain type of transaction permanently, then you might also want to keep any e-mails related to the transaction permanently as well. You could print out the e-mail and save the hard copy, or you could archive the e-mail electronically.

You might think you’re saving important e-mails on backup disks or tapes. However, if older tapes are routinely overwritten in your backup procedures, you could lose vital business information or, worse, documentation you were required to keep by law. Consider, too, how you will access permanently stored electronic records in the future as technology changes make older electronic formats obsolete.

E-mail messages can be maddeningly difficult to “shred.” You might delete an e-mail from your computer, but it can survive on a server, on a backup tape or on the recipient’s computer long after you’ve purged it from your own machine. Its little electronic fingerprints remain on your hard drive waiting for an electronic sleuth to find them unless your computer overwrites them or special software rubs them out. You might want an office policy on transmitting confidential or sensitive information via e-mail to be part of your overall document retention policy. 

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