Email RetentionEmail Retention

How State and Federal policies can impact local districts

Email Retention & PolicyEmail Retention & Policy

• What are State of Iowa Requirements for local records?

• How long should email be retained?

• How does Federal Law affect Schools?

• How is this interpreted for Iowa?

• Does SPAM need to be retained?

• What should a local district do in response?

Iowa Open Records LawE-Mails and Open Records Law

Iowa Code chapter 22 is Iowa's Open Records law. A public record includes e-mail messages sent and received by a school district (or AEA or any public) employee on his/her school-owned computer.

Just because the e-mails are public records does not mean that every word within the communication gets released. Items that potentially could be expunged (e.g., omitted by using white-out) may include students' names, parents' names, home addresses, other "home" information, SSNs, etc. What information - if any - gets expunged depends on the context and intent of the e-mail.

Open Records

Some senders of e-mail to district employees have some limited rights of privacy regarding their identity, again depending on all of the facts and circumstances.

School administrators should check with their school attorneys when a request for copies of e-mails (or any public document) is received.

http://coolice.legis.state.ia.us/Cool-ICE/default.asp?category=billinfo&service=IowaCode&ga=82

E-Mails and Open Records Law

URL to IOWA CODE Chapter 22- Open Records Law:

Email Retention

From: Greta, Carol [ED]To: Jaras, Vic [ED]Subject: RE: School Email Retention Question

There is a new federal court rule that boils down to this:  if a school district is ever involved in litigation in federal court, it cannot destroy any email that are pertinent to the case.  The trick is for districts to try to "know" ahead of time what email are pertinent or might be pertinent to a case that hasn't even been filed yet!  As with written communications, the smart rule of thumb is for districts to maintain ALL maintain ALL correspondence (regardless of medium) forcorrespondence (regardless of medium) for a minimum of two yearsa minimum of two years past the date of the correspondence.

Carol Greta, Attorney 3Iowa Department of Education

Email Retention

Here is more clarification from Carol Greta on email retention:

-There's no requirement to retain SPAM or for that matter, emails of the "are you free for lunch" type! Carol Greta, Attorney 3Iowa Department of Education

Further Clarification

Source: http://www.uscourts.gov/rules/EDiscovery_w_Notes.pdf

-page 6

TIP: Be prepared to explain why some email like SPAM is not reasonably accessible because of undue burden and cost.

Business & Email Retention• Section 37(f) of the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows for

the destruction of e-mail and other electronic documents, as long as as long as the deletion is part of a standard retention policy.the deletion is part of a standard retention policy. Despite the clear requirements, the E-mail Archiving Practices Survey showed that most organizations are not prepared:

• 53 percent of companies lack a policy to govern e-mail retention and deletion.

• 67 percent of companies allow individual end users to determine how long messages are kept by the company.

• 66 percent of companies do not have the e-mail archiving technology required to manage e-mail retention, litigation holds and e-Discovery.

• In the event of litigation, these companies would likely be required to search back-up tapes, desktop files and legacy systems to find information that was deleted in the absence of a good-faith retention policy.

Source: http://www.govtech.com/dc/237108

LexisNexis

• IowaIowaNorthern and Southern Districts of Iowa:Northern and Southern Districts of Iowa: Scheduling Order and Discovery Plan Instructions and Worksheet for Preparation of Scheduling Order and Discovery Plan and Order Requiring Submission of Same Local Rule 16.1 Scheduling Order and Discovery Plan Local Rule 26.1 Pretrial Discovery and Disclosures

Source: http://www.lexisnexis.com/applieddiscovery/LawLibrary/LocalDistrict.asp#IA

These documents may provide useful information to develop a local policy

Local Policy

• Tech Director or Coordinator• Superintendent• Principal• Special Ed Director• Board Member (s)• Local Attorney

--DEVELOP YOUR LOCAL RESPONSE PLANDEVELOP YOUR LOCAL RESPONSE PLAN

-DEFINE RESPONSIBILITIES-DEFINE RESPONSIBILITIES

-NOTIFY STAKEHOLDERS-NOTIFY STAKEHOLDERS

LOCAL POLICYCOMMITTEE