The GAO has released a report entitled Federal Records: National Archives and Selected Agencies Need to Strengthen E-Mail Management. The report found that “[w]ithout periodic evaluations of recordkeeping practices or other controls to ensure that staff are trained and carry out their responsibilities, agencies have little assurance that e-mail records are properly identified, stored, and preserved.” It also stated:
Although NARA [i.e., the National Archives and Records Administration] has responsibilities for oversight of agencies’ records and records management programs and practices, including conducting inspections or surveys, performing studies, and reporting results to the Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in recent years NARA’s oversight activities have been primarily limited to performing studies. NARA has conducted no inspections of agency records management programs since 2000, because it uses inspections only to address cases of the highest risk, and no recent cases have met its criteria. In addition, NARA has not consistently reported details on records management problems or recommended practices that were discovered as a result of its studies. Without more comprehensive evaluations of agency records management, NARA has limited assurance that agencies are appropriately managing the records in their custody and that important records are not lost.
Meanwhile, the White House is threatening a veto of the Electronic Message Preservation Act. According to the National Coalition for History, the bill “would direct the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to establish standards for the capture, management, preservation and retrieval of federal agency and presidential electronic messages that are records in an electronic format.” (Further info on the bill here, and on issues concerning the White House’s e-mail retention practices here.)
Hat tip regarding the GAO report to David Mattison at the Ten-Thousand Year Blog. Hat tip regarding the bill to BNA’s Privacy Law Watch.