Caveats: NONE
Unfortunately all data is not created equal. Even within email. The
rule of thumb is that you keep any data for the shortest period of time
required (by law, financial commitment, compliance, and perceived
institutional need) and have a data retention policy that clearly
outlines what types of data you keep and for how long. Most of your
email can probably have a short retention period (1 year, 90 days, or
less) but there are some types of data and email you may be required to
retain longer (e.g. related to a bond financing or HIPAA) these will
tend to be the exception and not the rule and you may want your policy
to be printing them out. Regardless, you really need a written policy
for each class of data (student records, library circulation reports,
etc.), stick to it, and don't define it by type of system (email, file
server, etc). NAIS has some good resources on this.
Secondly, everything in backup is just as vulnerable to subpoena and
warrant, so proper destruction of backups is necessary as well and
should align with your retention policy.
Finally, having students and teachers use real-world email accounts is a
wonderful educational tool, and I don't mean this as a criticism of the
value of Greg's program to students and teachers, but from a legal
perspective I believe you are far worse off having faculty and staff use
external services because you have no way to enforce or monitor
compliance with your data retention policies. Sure you will not have
the hassle of officer's seizing your servers, but lack most of the
controls that would allow you to enforce compliance on deletion or
proper retention, and ensure that during a discover phase documents that
might help the school are not destroyed. In terms of students it is not
quite as bad, but you are giving up the option to review student email
for in-school offenses (unless they give you permission and log you in).
Your only option to review student email is to start a civil or criminal
case and take it through the courts. As always, it would be best to
consult with a real lawyer about these kinds of things, as I may be way
off-base.
_Jason
___________________________________
Jason Johnson - Program Director
Web Services Branch - Walter Reed Army Medical Center Ingenium (ISO
9001:2000 certified)
Office: 202-782-1047
Cell: 202-262-0516
jason.johnson@ingenium.net
jason.p.johnson2@us.army.mil=20
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Backon, Joel
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 8:18 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Archiving email and limiting attachment size
The NAIS attorney told us, at a workshop, not to archive email at all
except during discovery as outlined by Peter Hoopes. Anything you have
in your archives (as opposed to a backup, which is a snapshot in time),
is subject to subpoena once a legal proceeding is initiated. You can
well imagine the types of messages circulating or saved on your email
server that might sometime have to be turned over to the courts.
_________________________________
Joel Backon
Director of Academic Technology / History Teacher Choate Rosemary Hall
333 Christian St.
Wallingford, CT 06492
203-697-2514
=20
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If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender
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-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for independent school educators
[mailto:ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Peter Hoopes
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 7:34 PM
To: ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: Archiving email and limiting attachment size
A forum for independent school educators <ISED-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
writes:
>Second item - length of time to keep the archived emails: 7 years. Is
this
>too long?
This is actually a MIS-interpretation of the law. At least our counsel
and several other strong firms in the area have told us, you do NOT have
to keep 7 years worth of email activity. You simply need to have in
place a method by which you CAN keep email during a discovery process
should get involved in one.
If you have consulted your school counsel and they believe 7 years is
necessary, then so be it. But, if you haven't, don't get caught up in
all of the panic about keeping that much email.
Peter Hoopes
Director of Technology
St. Andrew's School
phoopes@standrews-de.org
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
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Classification: UNCLASSIFIED=20
Caveats: NONE
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