Doug's points are well-taken. There are significant risks when
contracting with a third party for this sort of service. While you
avoid most of the cost of infrastructure, you do incur a whole lot of
risk.

You'll want to know if they provide a dedicated telecommunications line
for a secure link to their facility. If you're using the Internet, is
the connection to the website secured? (i.e. are they using VPN or
through SSL?) How often are they patching their firewalls and servers?
What sort of intrusion monitoring are they doing?

Since you work for a government agency, you'll also want to know if it
is permissible for a private company to be storing and retaining state
government records. Are you in violation of state records laws? Are you
opening the door to violation of privacy laws? I would expect that
you'll want an opinion from your attorney general. You'll also want to
be certain that your state archives has approved the imaging process
and authorized the destruction of paper records.

The biggest issue is really the stability of the company. If they go
kaput, you better have a way to get those images back and use them, so
standard image formats and metadata are critical. I also strongly
recommend that you require them to escrow their software, particularly
if they have any home-built stuff. Ideally, if they can escrow your
images (or provide you with CDs on a regular basis), you'll have a fall
back if something bad happens.

Patrick Cunningham, CRM

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