Legal Requirements for Email Archiving

Mostly, email archiving legal requirements make it clear how long electronically stored information (ESI) should be kept in order to remain compliant while safeguarding the integrity of email data.

As of 2006 it is a legal requirement, due to change to the Federal Rules of Civil Disclosure (Title V, Rule 26). That a group must be able to produce ESI inside 30 days upon receiving a court request to do so. This can be a short period of time in some sectors while in others it can mean that the email data must be retained indefinitely.

Due to the fact that most groups operate with a limited amount of storage capacity, holding large amounts of email data on a mail server for long periods of time is a difficult task. The volume of space taken up by the mail server will likely have an impact on the entire group’s network. By implementing an email archiving solution the strain placed on the email server is alleviated as the data is moved elsewhere. It will also allow the retrieval of a deleted email from the mail server.

Since May 25 2018 the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation has added a new dimension to data collection. Since it became active on that date, EU citizens have had the right to access their personal data and have any mistakes corrected along with requests that all personal data in relation to them is deleted.

Due to GDPR this data must also be safeguarded from being stolen or viewed by unauthorised individuals, similar to HIPAA legislation in the United States. Finally, GDPR also says that data stored in emails is that citizens’ requests to access and correct personal data must be completed inside of 30 days – this is made much easier with the implementation of an email archive.

Within different business sectors email archiving legal obligations can differ greatly so it is important to double check these for your group. It would be a wise move to seek advice from an expert group on this as they will be aware of all of the obligations that a business like yours need to adhere with when operating an email archive.

Cloud Based Email Archives

Cloud-based email archives will allow you to maintain ever more space on your own network and increase security levels further. Using a data center that is created for this sole purpose means that there are far less extenuating factors that might lead to your data being lost. All data is also automatically backed up. You would be moving all of your business’ email data in one secure environment, cloud-based email archiving solutions are much more streamlined for search capability and recalling archived correspondence than other solutions.

Due to the higher levels of security provided, guaranteed compliance, fewer IT issues and quicker retrieval times it is not difficult to see why cloud-based email archives have become more and more popular in recent years.