The following statement was included in the 39 page guide that our state IT department is sending to Maine employees who are migrating to Office 365.  This was not sent to Records Management or to the FOAA ombudsman for review before it was distributed (nor was records retention discussed with us before this plan was put in place).  We are now scrambling to try and figure out how we are supposed to manage this.  Any advice or supporting documentation would be appreciated.


10. Is it true that after moving to Exchange Online, all emails that come in or are sent are discoverable for 14 years, even if deleted?

* Individuals can delete email from their own accounts, and it will no longer be available to you.

* However, there is a master database that Microsoft describe as "immutable archive." Even if a user deletes all their emails, it can be recovered from the "immutable archive" by those who have administrator access to the "Compliance Center." This can be used for recovering deleted email, either for agency business use, or for Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) requests, litigation, etc.

These were my questions for the IT staff and we are scheduling a meeting with them and the FOAA ombudsman as soon as possible:  Who decided 14 years for all email?  Is that a standard somewhere?  Also, doesn't immutable mean permanent?  Why is it being described as an "immutable archive."  To me, that would imply the records are kept forever.  How are records purged?  Is that done automatically after 14 years?

I did hear from one state who said they worked with Microsoft to set up limited retention folders.  She said it was her understanding that Office 365 could be configured the way you want, so I'm questioning:  1) why our IT staff set a deleted email retention at 14 years and 2) why we were never consulted.  These particular questions obviously can't be answered by this listserv but I'm looking for as much "back-up" material as I can when we have our meeting with IT.

Thank you for any assistance you can offer.

Felicia Kennedy
Records Management Analyst
Maine State Archives
84 State House Station
Augusta, Maine 04333-0084
207-287-5798
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