The federal government and nearly all state governments have established “Open Records” laws. The purpose of these laws is to provide a level of transparency to the activities of government agencies and officials to their citizens. There are no specific guidelines on how long emails must be retained. However, IT departments of these agencies must comply with the request for information which, in the absence of an email archiving solution, typically includes the laborious process of the restoration of backup tapes and the manual search across multiple mailboxes. In many cases, this search only produces a fraction of the emails pertaining to the request.
Email Archiving provides quick deployment of email archiving for all government agencies regardless of their email platform. With secure capture of all emails and full text indexing of emails/attachments, Freedom of Information requests are fulfilled with limited expenditure of IT resources.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently ratified changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), which will take effect on December 1, 2006. These changes shift the rules of discovery in a legal proceeding from a focus on policies for electronic records retention, disposition, and preservation, to a focus on procedures that will streamline evidence presentation.
Email and storage administrators need to answer key questions like:
Email Archiving helps organizations comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing and storing up to 9 copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
Most local governments (County, City, Towns, and School Districts) have strict Open Meeting Laws. Join Letters, Conference Calls, and Emails usually entail “deliberation” and are subject to Open Meeting Laws.
The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) originally enacted the Securities Exchange Act in 1934, as a means of protecting investors from fraudulent or misleading claims by securities dealers. The Act required member firms to create and maintain transaction records that could be reviewed and audited. In 1997, rule 17a-4 of the Act was amended to provide procedures for storage of electronic records, including emails. This rule has since been interpreted to include instant messages as well.
NASD (National Association of Securities Dealers) applies similar rules to its member firms through NASD 3010.
The provisions of SEC 17a-4 and NASD 3010 apply to all individuals and organizations involved in trading securities. This includes securities firms, stock brokerage firms, banks, and any financial institutions that fall under SEC or NASD jurisdiction. They require securities dealers to implement specific, enforceable retention procedures, which include the following:
Archived messages must be stored in duplicate. One copy must be stored in an online archive, and a second copy must be stored offline on permanent, tamperproof media, such as Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) technology. Storage media must be verified automatically for quality and accuracy.
Email Archiving provides storage for all archived email on WORM compliant storage.
Archived messages must be date/time-stamped and serialized. Each message must be assigned a unique, sequential identification number as a safeguard against deletion.
The Email Archiving service guarantees we capture messages with their original integrity in tact (Message ID, body, attachments, etc.) Messages are differentiated by a unique identifier as a safeguard against deletion.
A searchable index of all stored data must be maintained. Indexes must be retained on each unit of storage media for the messages and attachments stored on that unit.
Email Archiving indexes all message components: Header, Body and Attachments and stores these securely.
Messages and indexes must be easily retrievable and downloadable to other media as required by SEC regulators.
The Email Archiving service indexes all message components: Header, Body, and Attachments. All of these components are easily searchable through a secure web based user interface and retrievable to standards-based formats like .pst, .pdf, text, mime, etc.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently imposed new regulations on private investment pools, also known as hedge funds. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in a three-to-two vote on Oct. 26, 2005 decided to require hedge fund managers with assets in excess of $25 million to register under the Investment Advisors Act of 1940. The regulation went into effect on Feb. 1, 2006.The ruling requires that most hedge fund advisers register with the SEC under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, which includes provisions for securing, managing and archiving all electronic communication, including email and instant messages. The rules governing the retention of electronic documents are the same as SEC 17 a-4.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was enacted in the wake of several major corporate and accounting scandals. Its provisions affect email retention, integrity and oversight. Sarbanes-Oxley applies to all publicly traded companies and the CPA’s and attorneys associated with these companies.
Email Archiving assists companies in complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing and storing up to 9 copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
This law was passed in 1996 and took effect in 2001. All organizations and business which handle, maintain, store, or exchange private health or patient related-information, regardless of size, are subject to HIPAA. In addition to health care providers and insurers, this includes employers maintaining employee health records, life insurers, public health authorities, organ donation banks, pharmacies, long-term facilities, billing agencies and clearinghouses. Each instance of intentional unauthorized disclosure is punishable by fines up to $250,000 and possibly 10 years of jail time.
Email Archiving helps organizations comply with the HIPAA regulation as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing, and storing up to 9 encrypted copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
This legislation was enacted by The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997 and enforced beginning in 2000. It governs the use of electronic signatures and electronic records by pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. It aims to insure that electronic media provide the same level of data integrity as the paper-based storage and retrieval systems they are increasingly replacing. It mandates that:
Email Archiving helps organizations comply with the 21 CFR Part 11 regulation as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing, and storing up to 9 copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
The GLBA was signed in 1999 and became fully effective on July 1, 2001. The law applies to banks, brokerage firms, tax preparation companies, insurance companies, consumer credit reporting agencies, and a wide variety of other financial services firms. Violations of the GLBA may result in a fine of up to $100,000 dollars and 5 years in jail. The primary focus of the GLBA is the protection of customer’s personal financial information.
Email Archiving assists companies in complying with GLBA as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing, and storing up to 9 copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
On June 14, 2004 the OCC Advisory sent out a letter highlighting issues regarding Electronic Record Keeping in light of the E-SIGN Act. 15 USC 7001. The purpose of this letter was to address key issues posed by electronic record keeping systems. The OCC Advisory letter stated that banks should implement an electronic record retention system to allow litigation, audits, bank supervision, and compliance with laws & regulations. Systems should also prevent external access by third parties, and provide back-up, internal controls, record destruction, and record retention.
Email Archiving assists companies in complying with OCC Advisory as it pertains to email archiving by securely capturing, indexing, and storing up to 9 copies of auditable email for easy retrieval through our search and discovery interface.
