Digital disposal
Retention and disposal authorities apply to all types of records, no matter the format. With many organisations now working fully online, managing and deleting digital records has become a key part of this process.
Like paper records, digital records must be carefully reviewed and documented before they are disposed of.
However, dealing with digital records often involves managing a wide range of systems and technologies on a large scale, sometimes under tight deadlines.
Digital systems create and store huge amounts of data. Even though storage has become cheaper and more advanced, managing digital information properly still requires careful planning and defensible processes. Here’s why:
- Just like with paper records, the government has rules about how long certain types of data can be kept, often due to privacy and other regulations.
- Digital disposal also includes identifying records that need to be kept permanently as State archives. Systems that manage important records should make it easy to identify and keep these.
- Managing digital systems is more than just paying for storage—it also includes costs for security, search, and discovery. These costs are growing more complex and expensive.
- Digital systems produce large amounts of metadata during their normal use. While this metadata is useful at the time, most of it doesn’t need to be kept long term.
Organisations should include digital disposal as part of their overall records and information management strategy. The focus should be on important systems and high-value or high-risk records.