State Records of South Australia MANAGING ELECTRONIC RECORDS ISSUES a discussion paper

The context

 (i) Legislative framework

State Records currently operates under the authority of the State Records Act 1997, (proclaimed 31 October 1997). The Act itself places some specific roles and responsibilities on State Records, for example as the principal repository of official records that are no longer required for current administrative use, to ensure the preservation of official records of enduring evidential or informational value, to promote the observance of best practices by agencies in their management of official records, and to ensure ready access to official records - to agencies as well as to members of the public. All of these have direct implications for the management of electronic records.

The Freedom of Information Act 1991 aims to extend, as far as possible, the rights of the public to obtain access to information held by the Government and to ensure that records held by the Government concerning the personal affairs of members of the public are not incomplete, incorrect, out-of-date or misleading. Agencies are required to give written notice to an applicant when an application made under the Act relates to records not held by the agency.

One piece of legislation which will need consideration is the Evidence Act 1929. There are provisions in part VIA for admitting computer evidence in civil or criminal proceedings, but they contain strict requirements to prove the integrity of the system from its outset before the evidence from the system is admissible. However, the purpose of that part is to make admissible in legal proceedings the output of a computer in circumstances in which it would not otherwise be admissible.

(ii) What is a record?

The definition given in the State Records Act of "record" is that it means:This needs to be read in conjunction with the definition for "official record" (the focus of the Act) which means "a record made of received by an agency in the conduct of its business…" and then goes on to specify three necessary exceptions, notably records created specifically for transmission to some other organisation or individual outside the agency concerned. This is what is termed a provenance-based approach.

1. written, graphic or pictorial matter; or
2. a disk, tape, film or other object that contains information or from which information may be reproduced (with or without the aid of another object or device)

A similar approach is taken in the recently issued Australian standard on records management, which defines "record" to mean

Recorded information, in any form, including data in computer systems, created or received and maintained by any organisation or person in the transaction of business or the conduct of affairs and kept as evidence of such activity.

An "electronic record" is simply a record which is…

…communicated and maintained by means of electronic equipment 

However, these definitions are not expressed in outcome terms. If a record is to be considered in this way, a rather different view emerges. A record is the documentation of a transaction that happens as a result of someone taking a particular action at a particular time - so it is the evidence, the proof, of what has happened, who was involved and when.

Seeing records in this way has been a result of the discussions during the past decade of what a record is in an electronic environment. Electronic records are extremely good at generating and storing data, but much less adequate at identifying when that data could be considered a record. To preserve all the data created in an electronic environment, in the hope that somehow a record component will be discernible, looks poor management.

There are a number of definitions which have been drafted in response to this situation. Inevitably each reflects the policies, practices and legislative regime within which the records are being considered. The work of the Archives Authority of New South Wales is a useful example:

The essential differences between records and documents are:

purpose: records are kept to provide evidence of business activity; documents may be kept for a wide range of purposes, including for use of the information they contain and for recycling into other documents, and

context: records are created in the course of business and thereby document business transactions; documents may or may nor be created in the course of business and be connected with a business transaction (on this test a publication is a document but not a record; while a copy of a document will be a record or part of a record if it took part in a transaction).

On this basis, most records are also documents and some documents are also records. But a document only functions as a record if it was created or received in the course of business and has been kept as evidence of that business activity. In other words, a document becomes a record when it takes part in a business transaction and is kept to provide evidence of it. One creates a document when one composes an electronic mail message; it becomes a record when one sends it

This distinction may be seen in the ways in which records and documents are managed. A document can be changed or updated, perhaps on a regular basis (thus version control is, rightly, an important part of document management). To be able to function effectively as evidence, a record must be inviolate an unalterable, making version control for records a contradiction in terms. 

(iii) Other key definitions

Appraisal

Appraisal is the process of evaluating business activities to determine which records need to be captured and how long the records need to be kept, to meet business needs, the requirements of organisational accountability and community expectations.

Disposal

The definition given in the State Records Act is:

"dispose of" an official record means-

(a) destroy or abandon the record; or

(b) carry out an act or process as a result of which it is no longer possible or reasonably practicable to reproduce the whole or part of the information contained in the record; or

(c) transfer or deliver ownership or possession or sell the record, or purport to do so.

Thus, in records management, this term has a much wider meaning than in its normal usage. Disposal means a range of processes associated with implementing appraisal decisions. These include the retention, deletion or destruction of records in or from recordkeeping systems. They may also include the migration and transmission of records between recordkeeping systems, and the transfer of custody or ownership of records.

Archives

This term is not used in the State Records Act.

Means those records that are appraised as having continuing value and will be retained permanently. It also means the place where archives are housed.

Metadata

This term is not used in the State Records Act.

Metadata is data describing data and data systems. In electronic recordkeeping this means data that must be captured along with electronic records to enable them to be understood and to support their management and use.