[File: City_Email_Policy_Updated_2008-12-18_Final.

doc]


THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO
M E M O R A N D U M


DATE: December 18, 2008

TO: All City Employees

FROM: J erry Sanders, Mayor
Elizabeth Maland, City Clerk
J an Goldsmith, City Attorney
Hadi Dehghani, Personnel Director

SUBJECT: Updated Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy and Guidelines
_____________________________________________________________________________

PURPOSE

This memorandum provides updated policy and guidance for official City records contained in
the Citys Electronic Mail (Email) system, superseding prior policies and procedures issued in
the past. The prior Email policy statement issued by the Mayor on March 17, 2006, is hereby
rescinded. The attachment to this memorandum provides definitions for the terms used in this
policy.

As in the past, employees must ensure that City Email (messages, notes, tasks, and meetings or
appointments) is properly identified as Official Records, as defined and where appropriate, and
as such are retained in compliance with records management policies, procedures, and legal
requirements. Email and electronic distribution of documents are subject to the same laws,
policies, and practices that apply to paper documents and other Official Records. Therefore, it is
essential that City employees are made aware that certain Email is considered an Official Record
which must be retained and destroyed according to the records retention specified for the
applicable Records Series in either the citywide General Records Disposition Schedule or
departmental Records Disposition Schedule.

EMAIL RETENTION POLICY

The Citys Email system (Exchange/Outlook) is not designed nor intended to be used for records
management purposes, nor for the long-term storage or retention of Email that is considered to
be an Official Record. As such, employees should not be using the Email system as a place for
keeping permanent copies of any Official Records. The City of San Diego has implemented a
new Email archive system (NearPoint) to capture all incoming and outgoing Email items. A
primary use for this new system is disaster recovery in case of data loss or corruption in the main
Email system, as well as providing a centralized electronic discovery (eDiscovery) tool. This
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All City Employees
Updated Email Retention Policy and Guidelines
December 18, 2008

[File: City_Email_Policy_Updated_2008-12-18_Final.doc]
new system will be evaluated, in coordination with the City Clerks office for its ability to
provide retention of Official Records from the main Email system.

Effective Monday, December 22, 2008, the City Email system will automatically delete Email
items from each Mailbox (including all subfolders) that are more than 90 days old, which moves
items into the Deleted Items folder. Email items in the Deleted Items folder will be
automatically purged/emptied after they are 7 days old. All Email items will still be available in
the NearPoint Archive system.

It is the policy of the City of San Diego, that each employee is responsible for deciding if and
which Email (messages, notes, tasks, and meetings or appointments) are Official Records. This
decision must be based on the content of the Email as it relates to the definitions of an Official
Record and Non-Record (see Attachment). Since the Record Owner is usually the originator
of the Email, it is imperative that employees review their Sent Items folder on a regular basis
to determine which are Official Records to be retained. Once that determination is made, the
Record Owner of any Email that constitutes an Official Record must ensure it is properly
preserved for the duration of the retention period provided in the applicable Records Disposition
Schedule.

It is the responsibility of each Department Head, acting through their managers and supervisors,
to ensure compliance with this policy by the employees within their department.

PROCEDURAL GUIDELINES

Preservation of Email that are considered Official Records must be in a format/medium outside
of the Email system, and it must capture the routing/transmission data (including date
created/sent, name of sender, and names of all recipients). The NearPoint Archive system will
meet this requirement, until a permanent Email records retention system is established.
Employees will receive separate instructions in the use of the NearPoint Archive.

Since the Email system is not intended for permanent storage and saving large volumes of Email
will cause the system to fail, employees should review their Email on a regular basis and delete
Non-Record items from Exchange/Outlook as soon as they are no longer useful to the
employee. Regular backups of the Exchange Email and NearPoint Archive systems takes place
daily and weekly for disaster recovery purposes.

Once the City is given notice of a lawsuit, or even if the City just has reasonable knowledge of a
pending or potential lawsuit, all relevant records related to that case/incident must be preserved,
including Email. During litigation, Email, including backups and copies of Email on hard drives
or printed copies, are all discoverable. Failure to properly comply with legal discovery can result
in the court rending a judgment by default against the disobedient party.

Email records retention must be implemented in conjunction with appropriate records
management procedures. The City Clerks Records Management Division is working with the
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All City Employees
Updated Email Retention Policy and Guidelines
December 18, 2008
Office of the ChiefInfonnation Officer (CIO) to develop a plan, procedures, and an automated
system using best practices for proper retention of Email as Official Records. When further
procedures and methods are developed for a long-term Email records retention system,
employees will be notified and trained as appropriate.
You may contact Kathryn Joy, Deputy Director of Records Management, to set up a meeting or
training session with her staff and your department to help align your business practices with
proper Email records retention. You may review your department's current Records Disposition
Schedule or the citywide General Records Disposition Schedule (for the Records Series common
to most departments) on the City Cler k's CityNet following a linkon the "Documents &
Forms" page (under ' Policy Documents' in the left-hand column).
AL_
Elizabeth Maland,
/?du?:A-
r Hadi Dehghani, P
KJ/AW
Attachments: Definitions
cc: Jay Goldstone, Chief Operating Officer
Mary Lewis, Chief Financial Officer
Kris Michell, Mayor's Chief of Staff
Tracy Jarman, Fire Chief
William Lansdowne, Police Chief
City Council Members
Andrea Tevlin, Independent Budget Analyst
Department Directors & Unclassified Managers
[File: City-EmailJolicy_Updatcd_2008-12-18Jinal.doc]
irector
Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy
ATTACHMENT

[File: City_Email_Policy_Attachment_Updated_2008-12-18.doc] A-1
DEFINITIONS

The San Diego Municipal Code (Chapter 2, Article 2, Division 26) defines an Official Record
as any record containing information relating to the conduct of the publics business prepared,
owned, used or retained by any City department regardless of physical form or characteristics.
It further defines a record as documentation used by a City department that is preserved because
of the informational value of data in the document or as evidence of the organization, functions,
policies, decisions, procedures, operations or other activities of the City.

The Municipal Code defines a Non-Record as material which is not retained in the regular
course of business or is a temporary aid, not created for the purpose of preserving its own
documentary or informational content for future reference. Examples of Non-Records include,
but are not limited to, letters of transmittal, extra copies (i.e., tickler file, follow-up or suspense
copy) of documents already in an official file, routine request for information or publication,
thank you notes and acknowledgements, automatic Email replies, and citywide broadcast Emails.
Whatever the form or characteristics, as long as something fits the broad definition of an Official
Record, it must be retained for the time period specified for the applicable Record Series in the
appropriate Records Disposition Schedule, which has been approved by the City Attorney and
City Council. Such Official Records are open to public inspection and copying, unless
specifically exempted by law from disclosure.

A Record Series consists of file groups systematically arranged, maintained and destroyed as a
group because they:

1. relate to a particular subject,
2. result from the same activity,
3. serve the same function,
4. document a specific type of transaction, and
5. take a particular physical form.

A Records Disposition Schedule is a comprehensive listing of all records series created or
maintained by an organization. The citywide General Records Disposition Schedule is the
Records Disposition Schedule which lists those Records Series which most (if not all)
departments create or maintain. This schedule gives a description of the records, identifies
which department is the official record keeper of the series (as appropriate), the total retention
required for each copy designation of the record, and the legal retention criteria. A departmental
Records Disposition Schedule is the schedule created for each department which lists the
unique Records Series which are created or maintained by that department.

The Disposition Schedules for the City contain the following information for each records series:

1. the description of the use and function,
2. the contents,
3. the event that triggers its transitions from active to inactive record (i.e. sold, completed,
closed, etc.),
4. the file arrangement,
Electronic Mail (Email) Retention Policy
ATTACHMENT

[File: City_Email_Policy_Attachment_Updated_2008-12-18.doc] A-2
5. the legal retention criteria,
6. how long the records must be kept in the office, and
7. when the records may be sent to inactive storage and/or when they may be digitized,
microfilmed, destroyed or transferred to the Archives Center.

The form or characteristics of an Official Record includes, but is not limited to, paper
documents, photographs, electronic files, Email, audio or video recordings, and physical objects
such as artifacts. Email, in and of itself, is not an Official Record per se; rather, it is the content
of the Email that determines whether or not it is an Official Record and which Record Series
covers its disposition (retention period and destruction).

The Record Owner is considered to be the creator/sender of an Email (messages, notes, tasks,
and meetings or appointments), when it originates within the Citys Email system. Recipients of
such Email are considered to have a duplicate copy of the Official Record, with the exception
that Email containing information significantly affecting the status or outcome of a file or record
for which the Recipient is responsible is not considered a duplicate copy. For external Email that
originates outside the Citys Email system, then each primary recipient (in the To field) is
considered to be the Record Owner, while secondary recipients (in the cc field) are considered
to have a duplicate copy of the record.