I agree with Luciana's post verbatim. I think most records & information managers do. I'm curious as to why no information management organization nor standards organization has set this out in some kind of standard or statement. 

Part of the problem again goes back to our habit of using the same word - "records" for the ocean of everything that is discoverable, and also the for things that are declared "official records" of our organizations subject to our records retention schedule. In our organization now, we refer to the ocean of everything as "content," and only use the word "record" for items that we've declared as official records subject to our RRS.  This has helped clear up some of the confusion when we discuss "records" with our staff.

I think that some statement, guideline, standard, - whatever - from one or more of our information management organizations or standards organizations that "backups are not records" would be helpful to us in the industry as we try to explain it to non-RIM folks, like, say, auditors or regulators.

Thanks everyone who responded.

Gary 

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Records and evidence are not the same thing. Evidence is a fact that proves (probans) that another fact which has to be proven (probandum) has occurred. Documentary evidence, specifically, is any evidence that takes the form of written information attached to a stable medium in a fixed form, but it does not have to be a record: it can be a book, a newspaper, the grocery list, writing on the wall, you name it.  

Backups are not records because they were created only for the purpose of disaster recovery rather than in the usual and ordinary course of business and for the purposes of such business (see related exception to the hearsay rule). It is important to destroy backups on a rotation for a variety of reasons (usually after the third backup is done one destroys the third) when they reproduce records in the recordkeeping system, and it is always advised to destroy all the backups for the records that are destroyed according to a retention and disposition schedule so that the reproductions in the backup cannot be used as evidence (note: not as records) against the organization after its records have been destroyed. It was fortunate that the prosecutor against Oliver North found non-record evidence against him after the record had disappeared but this does not make of the backup a record (not even a record of the court prosecuting it, as in that context it is an exhibit).

Dr. Luciana Duranti
Professor, Archival Studies
School of Library, Archival, and  Information Studies The University of British Columbia | The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
470-1961 East Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 Phone 604 822 2587 | Fax 604 822 6006 [log in to unmask] | www.slais.ubc.ca | Director I Centre for the International Study of Contemporary Records and Archives www.ciscra.org
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