Dear Luciana,

As I see it, your position is not 100% consistent :)

1. In many publications, you give more credibility to by-products of business activities than to something created ad hoc or deliberately for using as evidence. Many of these by-products are later used outside their initial scope. 

However, backups are similar by-products. They are often more trustworthy since they were not created with cheating in mind (court cases confirm that). For the god’s sake, backups are intended for resuming business! Organization’s survival depend on them being accurate and complete. And they are like the Vice-President of the USA – of little official importance while the President is alive and acting, but all important if something happens.

What’s big theoretical difference between a backup and a copy of the record deposited at the notary’s office for safekeeping? Do you see archival safety fonds on microfilm as non-archives? And if we deposit backups with regulator (Bank of Russia’s current practice mandatory for troubled banks) or with the same notary, then what?

2. Clearly your interpretation of “records” is more narrow that that of ISO 15489/ISO 30300 of the US legislation. Your interpretation IMHO favors “official” records.

3. Backups and not just digital “objects”, they are storage systems containing many things. They may contain digitally signed records that (at least in Russia) are seen as originals with full legal value. Please comment on that.

4. Backups are not proper tools for managing records, on that all of us agree. That doesn’t mean that they don’t contain records. You can dispose of backups more or less at will as long as the “official” originals exist; but if something happens to originals, you must ensure proper retention of records stored in backups. Colleagues have noted that that’s the practice of at least some Government agencies (life is richer than theory!).

5. When IT restores backups (happens often enough), the users may not be even notified. If backups are non-records, you probably have no e-records at all, since all of them at some point in time might have been restored from backups! :)

With my warmest feelings and deepest respect,
Natasha

-----Original Message-----

Hi Natasha:

It is not enough for something to be generated in the usual and ordinary course of business to be a record. It has also to be created for the purpose of the activity in which it participates and kept in relation to such activity. Backups are created for disaster recovery only. There are other theoretical reasons why backup are not records, but in the North America juridical system this trumps all. 

Luciana

Dr. Luciana Duranti
Professor, Archival Studies
School of Library, Archival, and  Information Studies The University of British 

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