Ilona, I'd like to respectfully disagree if I may: anything can be evidence;
only certain things need be records. Litigation and discovery relate to
evidence, of which records represent a portion. Its not so much about
declaring something as a record, but recognizing where the records reside,
and where they don't. When something is a record, it requires retention
controls. When something is not a record, it does not require such controls.
In many situations, the maintenance of the ongoing controls may outweigh by
several factors the potential losses from litigation. Minimizing the
controls to those items that are truly records minimizes costs. That's not
to say that non-records don't also require controls; they just don't require
as expensive a set of controls (for example, deleting a non-record copy vs.
capturing, classifying, and retaining a record copy based on its content).

In my opinion, this is even more important in the electronic world, not
less, and, its more difficult because the boundaries between
record/non-record are not as obvious as they are in the analog world.
Imagine, for example, applying the same retention rules to regularly cycled
backups (non-record) as you apply to the documents maintained in an active,
on-line system (records). The backup system may become evidence in the event
of litigation (lets hope it doesn't), but until then, it will not require
the same level of content driven control as a well designed electronic
records keeping system provides (which, if well maintained in the normal
course of business will probably make the backup system irrelevant as
evidence anyways).

If you were to apply the same content driven retention rules to a backup
system as to the on-line record, logically, you would have to keep each
backup for the longest period of time reflected in the retention of its
content. Of course, that would be ridiculous - I'm sure you will agree that
we can keep the backup for a shorter period of time, but now you are not
talking about records retention, you are talking about data backup cycles,
and that is a non-content, data driven time frame - or, "non-record" driven
process, if you will. Both the backup and the record systems can become
evidence, but only one requires actual content driven records controls.

To a certain extent, its the need for content driven control that separates
a "record" system from a "non-record" system. If you applied content driven
control to an interactive dashboard, you would need to record every instance
that it changed. Why do that when the underlying data feeding into the
dashboard records the same information? In this example, the data is the
record; the dashboard is not - its merely an interface.

In my opinion, these distinctions, while seemingly mote, are actually
critical, because the more we blur them, the more we begin to apply costly
controls to areas that really don't require them. And the more unnecessary
costs we generate, the less resources can be devoted to the areas where
higher intensity records controls are really needed.

-- 
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Multnomah County Records Management Program
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
ph: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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