[File: City_Email_Policy_Updated_2008-12-18_Final.doc]

THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO M E M O R A N D U M

DATE: December 18, 2008 TO: All City Employees FROM: Jerry Sanders, Mayor Elizabeth Maland, City Clerk Jan Goldsmith, City Attorney Hadi Dehghani, Personnel Director SUBJECT: Updated Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy and Guidelines _____________________________________________________________________________ PURPOSE This memorandum provides updated policy and guidance for official City records contained in the City’s Electronic Mail (Email) system, superseding prior policies and procedures issued in the past. The prior Email policy statement issued by the Mayor on March 17, 2006, is hereby rescinded. The attachment to this memorandum provides definitions for the terms used in this policy. As in the past, employees must ensure that City Email (messages, notes, tasks, and meetings or appointments) is properly identified as Official Records, as defined and where appropriate, and as such are retained in compliance with records management policies, procedures, and legal requirements. Email and electronic distribution of documents are subject to the same laws, policies, and practices that apply to paper documents and other Official Records. Therefore, it is essential that City employees are made aware that certain Email is considered an Official Record which must be retained and destroyed according to the records retention specified for the applicable Records Series in either the citywide General Records Disposition Schedule or departmental Records Disposition Schedule. EMAIL RETENTION POLICY The City’s Email system (Exchange/Outlook) is not designed nor intended to be used for records management purposes, nor for the long-term storage or retention of Email that is considered to be an Official Record. As such, employees should not be using the Email system as a place for keeping permanent copies of any Official Records. The City of San Diego has implemented a new Email archive system (NearPoint) to capture all incoming and outgoing Email items. A primary use for this new system is disaster recovery in case of data loss or corruption in the main Email system, as well as providing a centralized electronic discovery (eDiscovery) tool. This

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new system will be evaluated, in coordination with the City Clerk’s office for its ability to provide retention of Official Records from the main Email system. Effective Monday, December 22, 2008, the City Email system will automatically delete Email items from each Mailbox (including all subfolders) that are more than 90 days old, which moves items into the “Deleted Items” folder. Email items in the “Deleted Items” folder will be automatically purged/emptied after they are 7 days old. All Email items will still be available in the NearPoint Archive system. It is the policy of the City of San Diego, that each employee is responsible for deciding if and which Email (messages, notes, tasks, and meetings or appointments) are Official Records. This decision must be based on the content of the Email as it relates to the definitions of an “Official Record” and “Non-Record” (see Attachment). Since the Record Owner is usually the originator of the Email, it is imperative that employees review their “Sent Items” folder on a regular basis to determine which are Official Records to be retained. Once that determination is made, the Record Owner of any Email that constitutes an Official Record must ensure it is properly preserved for the duration of the retention period provided in the applicable Records Disposition Schedule. It is the responsibility of each Department Head, acting through their managers and supervisors, to ensure compliance with this policy by the employees within their department. PROCEDURAL GUIDELINES Preservation of Email that are considered Official Records must be in a format/medium outside of the Email system, and it must capture the routing/transmission data (including date created/sent, name of sender, and names of all recipients). The NearPoint Archive system will meet this requirement, until a permanent Email records retention system is established. Employees will receive separate instructions in the use of the NearPoint Archive. Since the Email system is not intended for permanent storage and saving large volumes of Email will cause the system to fail, employees should review their Email on a regular basis and delete “Non-Record” items from Exchange/Outlook as soon as they are no longer useful to the employee. Regular backups of the Exchange Email and NearPoint Archive systems takes place daily and weekly for disaster recovery purposes. Once the City is given notice of a lawsuit, or even if the City just has reasonable knowledge of a pending or potential lawsuit, all relevant records related to that case/incident must be preserved, including Email. During litigation, Email, including backups and copies of Email on hard drives or printed copies, are all discoverable. Failure to properly comply with legal discovery can result in the court rending a judgment by default against the disobedient party. Email records retention must be implemented in conjunction with appropriate records management procedures. The City Clerk’s Records Management Division is working with the

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Office of the ChiefInfonnation Officer (CIO) to develop a plan, procedures, and an automatedsystem using best practices for proper retention of Email as Official Records. When furtherprocedures and methods are developed for a long-term Email records retention system,employees will be notified and trained as appropriate.

You may contact Kathryn Joy, Deputy Director ofRecords Management, to set up a meeting ortraining session with her staff and your department to help align your business practices withproper Email records retention. You may review your department's current Records DispositionSchedule or the citywide General Records Disposition Schedule (for the Records Series commonto most departments) on the City Clerk's CityNet pag~ following a link on the "Documents &Forms" page (under 'Policy Documents' in the left-hand column).

CCu~diW,m(}~AL_Elizabeth Maland, C~r

/?du?:A-r Hadi Dehghani, P

KJ/AW

Attachments: Definitions

cc: Jay Goldstone, Chief Operating OfficerMary Lewis, Chief Financial OfficerKris Michell, Mayor's Chiefof StaffTracy Jarman, Fire ChiefWilliam Lansdowne, Police ChiefCity Council MembersAndrea Tevlin, Independent Budget AnalystDepartment Directors & Unclassified Managers

[File: City-EmailJolicy_Updatcd_2008-12-18Jinal.doc]

irector

Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy ATTACHMENT

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DEFINITIONS The San Diego Municipal Code (Chapter 2, Article 2, Division 26) defines an “Official Record” as “any record containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used or retained by any City department regardless of physical form or characteristics.” It further defines a record as documentation used by a City department that is “preserved because of the informational value of data in the document or as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations or other activities of the City.” The Municipal Code defines a “Non-Record” as “material which is not retained in the regular course of business or is a temporary aid, not created for the purpose of preserving its own documentary or informational content for future reference.” Examples of Non-Records include, but are not limited to, letters of transmittal, extra copies (i.e., tickler file, follow-up or suspense copy) of documents already in an official file, routine request for information or publication, thank you notes and acknowledgements, automatic Email replies, and citywide broadcast Emails. Whatever the form or characteristics, as long as something fits the broad definition of an Official Record, it must be retained for the time period specified for the applicable Record Series in the appropriate Records Disposition Schedule, which has been approved by the City Attorney and City Council. Such Official Records are open to public inspection and copying, unless specifically exempted by law from disclosure. A “Record Series” consists of file groups systematically arranged, maintained and destroyed as a group because they:

1. relate to a particular subject, 2. result from the same activity, 3. serve the same function, 4. document a specific type of transaction, and 5. take a particular physical form.

A “Records Disposition Schedule” is a comprehensive listing of all records series created or maintained by an organization. The citywide “General Records Disposition Schedule” is the Records Disposition Schedule which lists those Records Series which most (if not all) departments create or maintain. This schedule gives a description of the records, identifies which department is the official record keeper of the series (as appropriate), the total retention required for each copy designation of the record, and the legal retention criteria. A departmental “Records Disposition Schedule” is the schedule created for each department which lists the unique Records Series which are created or maintained by that department. The Disposition Schedules for the City contain the following information for each records series:

1. the description of the use and function, 2. the contents, 3. the event that triggers its transitions from active to inactive record (i.e. sold, completed,

closed, etc.), 4. the file arrangement,

Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy ATTACHMENT

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5. the legal retention criteria, 6. how long the records must be kept in the office, and 7. when the records may be sent to inactive storage and/or when they may be digitized,

microfilmed, destroyed or transferred to the Archives Center. The “form or characteristics” of an Official Record includes, but is not limited to, paper documents, photographs, electronic files, Email, audio or video recordings, and physical objects such as artifacts. Email, in and of itself, is not an Official Record per se; rather, it is the content of the Email that determines whether or not it is an Official Record and which Record Series covers its disposition (retention period and destruction). The “Record Owner” is considered to be the creator/sender of an Email (messages, notes, tasks, and meetings or appointments), when it originates within the City’s Email system. Recipients of such Email are considered to have a “duplicate copy” of the Official Record, with the exception that Email containing information significantly affecting the status or outcome of a file or record for which the Recipient is responsible is not considered a duplicate copy. For external Email that originates outside the City’s Email system, then each primary recipient (in the “To” field) is considered to be the Record Owner, while secondary recipients (in the “cc” field) are considered to have a “duplicate copy” of the record.