Document

A document is any record of information, regardless of the format or support used to record it.

Instituted by archival science, the above definition has a generalist character, which means
that certain sciences or some of their specialized branches may adopt more specific
definitions. This is the case, for example, in Law, where a document is defined as any
document that has legal relevance and can serve as evidence.

Typical documentation bodies are museums, archives, libraries, and documentation centers,
each with its own peculiar characteristics.

Classification

As for your origin

As for their origin, documents can be divided into public and private:

• Public: are issued and/or received by a governmental body in the management of its
activities or under power of attorney from a public authority. For example, public deed of
purchase and sale issued by a notary.

• Private: are issued by a private individual (individual), or by a public authority outside its
functions, attributions, or competence.

As for your worth

The value of the documents must be clearly defined, sustainable and coexisting with the
period in which they were generated. In this way, the following values are obtained:

• Administrative - Value that a document has for the administration that produced the archive,
insofar as it informs, justifies or approves its present or future acts.

• Fiscal - Value assigned to documents or files to prove financial or tax operations.

• Informative - Value that a document has for the information it contains, regardless of its
probative value.

• Legal - Procedural value that a document has before the law to prove a fact or constitute a
right.

• Permanent - Probative value or informational value that justifies the permanent keeping of a
document in an archive. Also referred to as historical value.

• Primary - Value assigned to documents according to the interest they may have for the file
generator, taking into account their usefulness for administrative, legal and tax purposes.

• Evidence - Intrinsic value of a record that allows it to serve as legal evidence.

• Secondary - Value assigned to documents according to the interest they may have for the file
generator, and for other users, in view of their usefulness for purposes other than those for
which they were originally produced.

As for the degree of secrecy

Brazil

In Brazil, a document can be classified as ostensive or confidential. A document is ostensive

when no degree of secrecy has been assigned to it, given that access to its content does not
jeopardize individual or collective rights. Ostensible documents must be fully accessible.
Consequently, a document is confidential when it is assigned some degree of secrecy, as access
to its content may jeopardize individual or collective rights. These are the degrees of
document secrecy:

• Reserved

It is a document with information whose unauthorized disclosure could compromise plans,

operations or objectives provided for or referred to therein. A document may not be held in
"reserved" secrecy for more than five years.

• secret

It is a document with information regarding systems, installations, programs, projects, plans or

operations of national defense interest, diplomatic and intelligence matters, strategic
programs or installations, whose unauthorized knowledge could cause serious harm to
security. This document may not be kept "secret" for more than fifteen years.

• top secret

A document cannot be kept with a "top secret" degree of secrecy for more than twenty-five
years, unless its access or disclosure could cause an external threat to national sovereignty, the
integrity of the national territory or a serious risk to the country's international relations. , a
situation in which classification in the "top secret" degree of secrecy may be extended, for a
single time, over a specified period not exceeding twenty-five years. Therefore, in exceptional
situations, the total term of this classification will be limited to a maximum of fifty years.