Email and Electronic Records

Washington State defines a record as information regardless of physical form or characteristics. Chat/instant messages, tweets, texts and any other forms of written communication are subject to retention requirements and to public records requests.

There are two simple ways to retain an old webpage/site:

1. Before making the changes, download a copy of the page/site and file it chronologically with any previous changes/updates.
2. If your website is capable of it, enable version control. This will track the different revisions as you update content and enables you to pull up previous versions when needed.

Note: Be sure to also capture any important embedded content or downloadable files that are part of the page.

It depends upon the type of changes that are being made to the webpage.

If you are only modifying the layout or display, or making other revisions that don't substantially change the content, then you do not have to keep a copy of old webpages.

Backups are considered to be duplicates. Duplicates can be destroyed once they have served their reference purpose. We highly recommend using backups only to restore data in cases of a disk failure, accidental deletion, or for disaster recovery purposes. We recommend that full backups should not be kept for more than 6 months and that partial backups not be kept for more than 3 months.

No. Currently, most records are created or received electronically, and maintaining them in their native electronic format is actually preferred over printing and retaining them in paper. However, be aware that electronic records are governed by the same retention requirements as paper records.

Yes. Records retention schedules cover all records created or received by University employees, whether in paper or electronic format. Both the state and the federal government define a record as information “regardless of physical form or characteristics”, so by definition, an email, database, or word document is also a record.

Yes. Like any other kind of record, retention periods do have to be applied to emails. The retention is based on the content of each individual email since email itself is not a record; it is a way of transmitting information. Most emails have a very transitory value and therefore can be deleted as soon as they have fulfilled their reference purpose. These emails include preliminary drafts, general announcements, and routine requests for information.