Email Archiving Retention Periods: The Lowdown
Not sure which emails to retain, and for how long? It’s time to understand the different factors that influence retention policies. The IT department can influence the retention policy development by advocating for some legal input, and providing technical guidance. Another area the IT department can draw on for retention periods is regulatory policies and mandates, and risk-mitigation best practices.
Factors to consider:
External Mandates
Compliance mandates can range from strict laws naming specific time periods to broader laws, or even certification requirements. Segments like the financial industry, healthcare, education, government, etc are quite strictly regulated. It’s important if your organization is in a heavily regulated industry to learn which regulations cover your area and which kind of laws will apply to your situation.
Nonspecific mandates also exist. They require the enterprise to develop policies around certain documents and to demonstrate adherence due to certification requirements and professional guidelines.
Privacy Laws
Regional differences in privacy laws have to be taken into account when developing an email retention policy. In North America, the courts tend to see employee email as the property of the enterprise. This is because the messages were created on enterprise systems and transmitted, stored and retrieved from them. In Europe, the courts treat email as the property of the sender alone, which places roadblocks in the way that enterprises wish to read, keep or act on information in an email.
What’s the story with statutes of limitation?
It’s important to consider how much time can pass before an enterprise faces a lawsuit regarding data retention. For example, employment records and manuals should be stored for the length of the employee’s stay at the company, plus another period of 7 years. This includes email relevant to the employee and their HR issues.
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