My answer is....it depends.
In the absence of legal or regulatory requirements to the contrary, I'd
think so. In other words, a public company has to comply with the
recordkeeping requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. A utilities company falls
under at least the state public utilities commission and may fall under
local and federal regs as well. All of those come with certain requirements
for recordkeeping. And of course the IRS, EPA, and many other three-lettered
agencies have requirements as well.
For things that are not required by legal or regulatory requirement, but are
useful to the business, such as, say, the names and pass/fail status of all
students I've ever taught a CDIA+ course to, there is no formal requirement
to keep those. It depends then on my determination that they are records and
how long I think I should keep them (in my case, until the exam is updated +
2 years). The PPTs that I use to generate the certificates of completion I
have designated as transitory records and keep them for 6 months.
The problem I have with the attorney cited is that pesky term
"unilaterally". If for no other reason than the IRS, "t'aint no such thing".
Cheers,
Jesse Wilkins
CDIA+, EDP, LIT/ERM, ICP, ECMp, ERMs
IMERGE Consulting
[log in to unmask]
(303) 574-1455 office
(303) 484-4142 fax
Yahoo! IM: jessewilkins8511
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Nolene Sherman
Sent: Thursday, January 26, 2006 5:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: What is a record?
According to the "Glossary of Records and Information Management Terms"
a Record is "Recorded information, regardless of medium or characteristics,
made or received by an organization that is evidence of its operation, and
has value requiring its retention for a specific period of time."
One of the attorneys posited that a business record is what the company says
is a record ... that a company can unilaterally say that XYZ is not a record
(or is a non-record, or a transitory record), and therefore has no
obligation to retain. Does this fly from a litigation standpoint?
From a regulatory standpoint?
Nolene Sherman
Director of Records Management
Standard Pacific Homes
(949) 789-1668
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List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
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