Under section 3 of the State Records Act 2000 business information must be maintained as a record.
Email is an important part of the business information managed by organisations. The management of email must be addressed through an organisation’s record keeping plan.
Employees of organisations will deal with various types of email in the course of their duties, and care must be taken to ensure email containing business information is captured into an official record keeping system as email systems do not have adequate record keeping functionality.
Email categories for retention and disposal
Email created or received by most agencies can generally be divided into four broad categories, each with different retention and disposal requirements.
| Type | Description | Retention - Disposal |
| Personal email | Personal email relates to private or personal matters which is unrelated to the business of the organisation. | Personal email should be destroyed as soon it is no longer required. Note that any email retained by the organisation is accessible under the Freedom of Information Act 1992. |
| Ephemeral email | An ephemeral email may be used to facilitate the organisation’s business but has no continuing value to the organisation and is generally only needed for a few hours or a few days. Examples of ephemeral email include:
| Ephemeral email can be destroyed when no longer required.
|
| Business email | A business email contains information created or received by an officer in the course of their duties and contains information which is of value to the organisation. A business email may have all or any of the following attributes:
| Business email are State records and must be captured in an official record keeping system to provide evidence of business activity and meet legal requirements. Business email must be retained in accordance with the subject matter of the record and may only be destroyed in accordance with an approved retention and disposal authority. |
| Combination email | If the email incorporates both personal and work-related information, the email must be managed as a business email.
| These emails are State records and must be captured in an official record keeping system to provide evidence of business activity and meet legal requirements. |
Email capture
Business email must be captured within an official record keeping system. Policies, procedures and training for all staff responsible for capturing business email must be in place to ensure email is captured into an official record keeping system and not held exclusively on email systems. Leaving business emails within an email system means that they are not accessible to other employees of the organisation and are not kept in context with other records that relate to the same subject matter.
Organisations are encouraged to establish rules to direct responsibilities for email capture, particularly in cases where there are multiple recipients. This will ensure emails are not captured more than once.
Business email often carries specific attributes which should be managed in the following manner:
Email with attachments or links
Attachments to business email must also be captured into the organisation’s record keeping system, or relevant business information system. These documents are an important part of a record and must be captured with the email message.
Where an email includes a link to a document, the document must be downloaded and registered separately, then the two records related in the electronic record keeping system. The links should be captured as soon as possible as some links are set to expire after a certain length of time or a specific date.
Carbon copy (cc) and blind carbon copy (bcc) emails
If a cc or bcc business email is received from an external source, the email must be captured in the organisation’s record keeping system by the recipient.
If an internal email is sent by cc or bcc to other officers in the organisation for informational purposes only (i.e. no requirement to action the email), the originator is responsible for capturing the record, if appropriate, to ensure the email is not captured by multiple officers.
Email threads
Business emails should be captured into the appropriate system as soon as they are sent or received, or as soon as possible thereafter. Email often involves a thread of communication. Organisations should determine at which point email (including any attachments) must be captured to ensure the completeness of the record.
Options may include:
- capturing each email as it is sent or received
- capturing at the very end of the thread, which may reduce the volume of emails captured but runs the risk of non-capture, as the end of the thread may not always be apparent
- capturing at significant points in the thread, such as when key decisions are made.
Storage
Email retained as records need to be kept for varying periods of time, in accordance with their subject matter. Business email should be stored in an official record keeping system capable of managing it for as long as required, before it can be disposed of in accordance with the relevant approved retention and disposal authority.
Organisations must have policies in place to ensure business email is protected from unauthorised loss, alteration and destruction.
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