Could You Be Breaking The Law By Not Archiving E-mails?
It’s 4:30 on Friday afternoon when you get the message that a key vendor will not be able to deliver what they promised on time, which will in turn cause YOU to miss a critical deadline for your most important client. Frustrated, you call the vendor, who instantly denies ever being told about the deadline.
You know deadlines were discussed but can’t find it in your original written agreement. You then turn to your e-mail only to be forced to dig through hundreds of messages to try and find the e-mail where you conveyed the importance of this project being delivered on time, but you can’t find it because it was deleted.
Sound familiar? Or perhaps you’ve been in a similar situation where you’ve had to “archive search” for old e-mail communications? Think about it – almost all of your business communications and negotiations are performed via e-mail, making them important documents to keep for reference. And since you send and receive hundreds if not thousands of e-mail messages annually, it just makes sense to have a simple and easy way to find old communication threads. But this isn’t just a convenience issue, it’s a legal one.
What Every Business Is Required By Law To Do
Some industries have strict guidelines on storing e-mail communications (financial institutions for example). But what most people don’t realize is that ALL businesses need to address email
storage and in this instance, ignorance is far from bliss – it could put you and your organization in serious legal trouble.
David Thompson, AXS-One, explains the legal and business reasons why e-mail archiving is a must :
“Enron, Morgan Stanley and the Australian Wheat Board are familiar names that may send shivers down the spine of senior management. All these organisations have been involved in controversy over e-mails that have cost the company’s reputation and/or resulted in large fines. Companies need to be prepared for “electronic discovery.”
Simply put, this means you must know where your data is and how to retrieve it. Failure to do so can lead to fines or loss of a lawsuit. Those in IT records management need to be aware of the protection required when it comes to electronic documents; having no protection carries risks that the business may not be able to sustain.
While Australia doesn’t have a Sarbanes-Oxley Act as in the United States, there are a number of legal obligations for the retention, and destruction of e-mails and other electronic records. For example, the Corporations Act (which requires items to be retained for seven years) and applications for employment (six months).
In addition, records created by the HR department and Occupational Health and Safety may be covered by a number of statutes all with varying retention periods from six months to 25 years or more.”
