I would more compare IM to voicemail:  Used as a convenience instead of
face-to-face or telephone conversations for the most part.

Does your business keep voicemail?  In some cases, businesses may have need
to.  Or, taking it one step further, some businesses may need to record
telephone transactions, just as some businesses may have to keep IMs.

But ... Just because something is recorded doesn't mean you have to, or even
should, keep it.  On the other hand, not having a policy is just begging for
trouble.  So IM content is a record (and so is the content of your
voicemails), and they should be scheduled with other records - usually as
transient communications that can be deleted as soon as they are dealt with.
Because if you're using IM or voicemail for important stuff, you again are
begging for trouble unless you've carefully integrated into your business
processes and provided for its retention as appropriate to support those
processes.

Just my tuppence.

Peter Lundell
Millican & Associates, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Wilson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 2:25 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Instant messages (IM)


While the employees were honest enough to admit that they use IM in the same
way as walking to the next cubicle, they unfortunately must understand that
the medium they are using, IM, is a live written (typed) record, already
recorded.  As such any policy to destroy it does not make it less a record.
Unfair as it may be comparable, conversations from walking to the next
cubicle are not records unless recorded by some medium although I guess if
it became necessary those employees could testify to the content of those
conversations and their testimony would be a record.

If you want to make things a little more complicated think about the
components of IM now.  You can voice chat in IM, whiteboard (i.e. draw with
your mouse or stylus), send files.  Much of this can be controlled with
firewalls, but many companies may not be watching all these components.

I hope you keep us updated on how this unfolds.  I'll be interested to
learn.

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