In a Nutshell

Emails must be captured and maintained as full and accurate records.

Emails must be captured in such a way that they maintain context, content and structure.

All parts of an email including attachments, links, graphics and sound contribute to structure and content.

In Depth

Emails must be captured and maintained as full and accurate records.

• The evidential value of an email that is a public record is retained if it is captured and maintained in the form in which it was originally represented. Emails may contain embedded links to other resources, attached files containing documents (word processing, spreadsheets etc.) graphics, sound, music, video, images and animations. These elements also have to be preserved to ensure the value of the record is retained.
• In order to function as a record, the structure, context, and content of emails require preservation. Recordkeeping metadata that describes the context, content, and structure of the email is to be captured and maintained with the record.

The following links will provide you with more information on how you can capture full and accurate records of your emails.

Maintaining Context;

Maintaining Content;

Maintaining Structure;

Questions

Click here to check your understanding.

Policy

Click here to link to the policy.

Management

Are our storage facilities sufficient to capture attachments as well as emails?

Record Staff

Requirements for effectively managing emails that are public records include:

• control of records creation;
• secure storage and retrievability;
• linking of appropriate disposal sentences to captured emails; and
• ensuring disposal is carried out according to the relevant disposal authority.

The application of recordkeeping metadata to records facilitates the capture, control and disposal of records. In the electronic environment the capture, creation, retention and preservation of metadata are integral to the concept of records as evidence. Capture emails into the recordkeeping system with all the necessary recordkeeping metadata included. For example: 'Subject', 'Disposal Authorisation', 'Retention Period', 'Date Last Modified' and 'Disposal Action'.

Business classification schemes and thesauri, based on a public authority's functions and activities, assist in the integrated and consistent management of records, including emails. Thesauri create a controlled vocabulary scheme for categorising and indexing files and documents.