Preservation of electronic documents in the private sector

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Preservation of electronic documents in the
private sector

• Business imperative and heritage responsibility
• Peter Lor
• Retha Snyman
• Department of Information Science
• University of Pretoria

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Introduction

• Documents correspondence created electronically
• Printed out to mail or fax?
• Spreadsheets, databases? Embedded functionality
  lost in print-outs
• Information for decision-making in organisations
  obstacles
• Multiple formats
• Independent business units
• Gaps, inconsistencies, duplication

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Intro (2)

• Organisations need to control
• Acquisition
• Storage retrieval
• Access
• All documents
• This paper
• Electronic documents/records
• Long-term perspective
• Focus on preservation
• Private sector ( civil society)

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Increase in electronic documents

• Rapid increase
• E-mail, especially
• Radicati Group
• Typical corporate user 2003
• Receives 81, send 29 e-mails per day
• Attachments average 435KB each
• Send/receive 9.6 MB e-mail data per day
• 2005 Estimated 46 MB per day

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electronic documents (2)

• Electronic document management systems
• Do away with paper!
• Many benefits, savings
• Ever-increasing of documents only retained
  electronically

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Why retain and preserve?

• Reasons fall into three categories
• Business
• Legal
• Heritage

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Why retain Business

• Business reasons
• Strategic planning
• Management of operations
• HR management
• Financial management
• Records a strategic knowledge resource
• Electronic records/documents too

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Why retain Laws

• Legal reasons
• Laws require retention of records
• Various periods
• To be produced for inspectors, officials, other
  parties, public
• Criminal sanctions or civil damages

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Why retain Laws

• Insolvency Act, No. 24 of 1936
• Transfer Duty Act, No. 40 of 1949
• Income Tax Act, No. 58 of 1962 (Sections 75(1)
  and (2))
• Customs and Excise Act, No. 91 of 1964
• Stamp Duties Act, No. 77 of 1968 (Section 23(6))
• Companies Act, No. 61 of 1973 (see Regulations
  for the Retention and Preservation of Records
  (R2592 of 25 November 1983)
• Co-operatives Act, No. 91 of 1981
• Close Corporations Act, No. 69 of 1984 (see
  Regulations)

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Why retain Laws

• Insolvency Act, No. 24 of 1936
• Transfer Duty Act, No. 40 of 1949
• Income Tax Act, No. 58 of 1962 (Sections 75(1)
  and (2))
• Customs and Excise Act, No. 91 of 1964
• Stamp Duties Act, No. 77 of 1968 (Section 23(6))
• Companies Act, No. 61 of 1973 (see Regulations
  for the Retention and Preservation of Records
  (R2592 of 25 November 1983)
• Co-operatives Act, No. 91 of 1981
• Close Corporations Act, No. 69 of 1984 (see
  Regulations)

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Why retain More laws

• Stock Exchange Control Act, No. 1 of 1985
• Value-added Tax Act, No. 89 of 1991
• Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of
  1993
• Mutual Bank Act, No. 124 of 1993
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and
  Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993
• Labour Relations Act, No. 66 of 1995
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act, No. 75 of
  1997
• Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998
• Freedom of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of
  2000
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act,
  No. 25 of 2002

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Why retain More laws

• Stock Exchange Control Act, No. 1 of 1985
• Value-added Tax Act, No. 89 of 1991
• Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of
  1993
• Mutual Bank Act, No. 124 of 1993
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and
  Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993
• Labour Relations Act, No. 66 of 1995
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act, No. 75 of
  1997
• Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998
• Freedom of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of
  2000
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act,
  No. 25 of 2002

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Why retain More laws

• Stock Exchange Control Act, No. 1 of 1985
• Value-added Tax Act, No. 89 of 1991
• Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of
  1993
• Mutual Bank Act, No. 124 of 1993
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and
  Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993
• Labour Relations Act, No. 66 of 1995
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act, No. 75 of
  1997
• Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998
• Freedom of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of
  2000
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act,
  No. 25 of 2002

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Promotion of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of
2000 (PAIA)

• Section 50 Right of access to records of private
  bodies
• For exercise or protection of any right
• Section 51 Manual
• Records automatically available
• Records available under other laws
• Description of subjects on which body holds
  records
• Creates expectations that records are retained

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PAIA (2)

• Section 55 Records that cannot be found or do
  not exist
• Head must give affadavit or affirmation
• No sanction
• Section 90 Offences
• Destroying, damaging, altering, concealing,
  falsifying records with intent to deny a right of
  access is an offence
• PAIA does not specify retention period but has
  created awareness

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Why retain More laws

• Stock Exchange Control Act, No. 1 of 1985
• Value-added Tax Act, No. 89 of 1991
• Occupational Health and Safety Act, No. 85 of
  1993
• Mutual Bank Act, No. 124 of 1993
• Compensation for Occupational Injuries and
  Diseases Act, No. 130 of 1993
• Labour Relations Act, No. 66 of 1995
• Basic Conditions of Employment Act, No. 75 of
  1997
• Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998
• Freedom of Access to Information Act, No. 2 of
  2000
• Electronic Communications and Transactions Act,
  No. 25 of 2002

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Electronic Communications Transactions Act, No.
5 of 2002 (ECTA)

• Rough passage through Parliament
• Cryptography providers (Ch V)
• Protection of critical databases (Ch IX)
• Domain name authority and administration (Ch X)
• Relevant to us
• Facilitating electronic transactions (Ch III)

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ECTA (2)

• Section 11(1) Information is not without legal
  force and effect merely on the grounds that it is
  wholly or partly in the form of a data message.
  
• Data message defined as data generated, sent,
  received or stored by electronic means.
• Includes voice (in automated transactions) and
  stored records.
• Data defined as electronic representations of
  information in any form.

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ECTA (3)

• The term data message covers electronic
  documents including e-mail messages
• Subsection (3) implies that a document sent as an
  e-mail attachment is accorded the same legal
  status as its paper-based equivalent.
• Various provisos! Disclaimer!

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ECTA (4)

• Section 12 A requirement in law that a document
  or information must be in writing is met if the
  document is
• (a) in the form of a data message and
• (b) accessible in a manner usable for subsequent
  reference.

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ECTA (5)

• Section 13 A data message can be signed using an
  advanced electronic signature.
• An advanced electronic signature one that
  results from an accredited proces
• Section 37 An Accreditation Authority accredits
  authentication products services.

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ECTA (6)

• Section 14 Information that is required to be
  presented or retained in its original form can
  legally be submitted electronically, provided
  certain conditions are met.
• Section 15 Admission and evidential weight of
  data messages in legal proceedings

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ECTA (7)

• 16(1) Where a law requires information to be
  retained, that requirement is met by retaining
  such information in the form of a data message,
  if
• a. the information contained in the data message
  is accessible so as to be usable for future
  reference
• b. the data message is in the format in which it
  was generated, sent or received, or in a format
  which can be demonstrated to represent accurately
  the information generated, sent or received

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ECTA (8)

• c. the origin and destination of the data
  message and the date and time it was sent or
  received can be determined.
• Section 17 subject to certain provisos, where a
  law requires a person to produce a document or
  information, that requirement is met if the
  person produces, by means of a data message, an
  electronic form of that document or information

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ECTA (9)

• Bottom line Generally,
• subject to various provisos that are mainly
  concerned with ensuring that the document is what
  it purports to be,
• Electronic documents have the same legal force as
  paper documents.
• Hence we have to take as much care of them as of
  paper documents

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Why retain Heritage

• Corporate records of historical value
• Peter Carstens In the company of diamonds De
  Beers, Kleinzee and control of a town (2001)
• UNESCO Memory of the World Programme
• VOC Archives
• Slave Route Project

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Why retain Heritage (2)

• Electronic corporate publications
• Electronic journals
• Online databases
• GIS Directories Bibliographic databases
• Concern no more printed directories etc.
• Web sites
• Legal deposit
• Current research

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Overview

• Increase in electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Vulnerability of electronic documents

• Hostile activity
• While networked storage provides a number of
  benefits to data center managers, it also
  introduces new risks to stored information.
  Unlike direct-attached storage, networked storage
  aggregates data, making it an attractive target
  for external and internal attacks. Data
  aggregation means that a single breach can have a
  substantially greater negative impact.
  Furthermore, removable media such as tapes can be
  lost, misplaced or stolen. Offsite data mirroring
  and back-up services often expose valuable data
  to third parties (Kasten Chase, 2004).

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Vulnerability of e-Documents

• Hostile action
• Inaction
• Examples
• 1960 decennial US census UNIVAC computer
  obsolete
• Data from Viking mission to Mars
• Pre-1979 Landsat images

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Vulnerability (3)

• Down memory lane
• What do these names say to you?
• NewBrain, Sord, Lynx, Dragon
• Acorn, Apricot
• Radio Shack, Atari, Commodore PET
• Sinclair Spectrum

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Vulnerability (4)

• Own operating systems, Basics
• Tape cassettes for storage
• Early disk operating systems
• Creativity Amateur computing
• Programs, Games, Theses
• Lost!
• Illustrate all the aspects of vulnerability

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Vulnerable Reasons (1)

• Deterioration of physical media
• Life expectancy
• CDs 5 50 years
• Magnetic tape decades not centuries
• Undramatic
• Failure is total
• Remedy refresh data
• Big job needs to be managed

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Vulnerable Reasons (2)

• Obsolescence of physical media
• New tape disk formats
• Period of co-existence
• 360 KB floppie ? 1,44 MB stiffie
• After stiffies?
• Brief window period
• Remedy transcribe data

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Vulnerable Reasons (3)

• Obsolescence of applications software
• E.g. word processors
• WordStar ? WordPerfect ? MS Word
• Earlier versions of MS Word
• Spreadsheets, databases, etc.
• Remedy migrate data from older systems or
  platforms to more recent
• Loss of data (e.g. fonts, formatting, fields)

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Vulnerable Reasons (4)

• Obsolescence of hardware
• Together with microcode operating systems
• Example Sinclair, NewBrain, etc.
• Remedy Emulate older system
• Write program to put a
• Virtual NewBrain inside a 2005 PC
• Virtual 2005 PC inside a 2025 PC
• Virtual 2025 PC inside

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Vulnerable Reasons (4a)

• Emulation
• Software written to emulate original hardware
  software environment
• retain look and feel
• Why? Museum, heritage concern
• Alternative port programs to run on newer
  operating system
• Loss of data functionality
• Look and feel lost

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Overview

• Rise of electronic documents
• Why retain and preserve electronic documents?
• Business reasons
• Legal reasons ECTA
• Heritage reasons
• Vulnerability
• Role of knowledge manager

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Managing e-preservation role of the knowledge
manager

• Knowledge management
• Explicit tacit knowledge
• Organisational asset
• Competitive advantage
• No recipes every organisation unique
• Strategy needed for e-resources

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Knowledge manager (2)

• Knowledge audit
• What info is needed?
• By whom?
• How will it be used?
• Current info sources, services, systems
• Information flow (internal, external)
• State of information, knowledge management
• Relevant legislation

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Knowledge manager (3)

• Knowledge management system
• Acquisition
• Structure
• Preservation
• Packaging
• Delivery
• in line with organisations objectives, corporate
  culture org. structure

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E-Documents KM

• e-Documents in a KM system
• Documents must be shareable, allow multiple
  simultaneous use
• Duplication to be eliminated
• Version control
• Metadata needed
• Free-text searching
• Controlled routing of documents
• All file formats accommodated

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E-documents in KM (2)

• e-Documents in a KM system (contd.)
• Conversion from paper to electronic
• E-mail policy procedures
• Business-related email attachments to be
  captured
• Check-in check-out control
• Central repository for all e-documents
• Open standards for seamless integration

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Knowledge manager (6)

• Important considerations
• Ethical issues
• e.g. autonomy, moral responsibility, fairness of
  access, quality of knowledge transfer
• Protection of intellectual property
• Adherence to legislation, e.g. PAIA, ECTA
• Technically sound, standardised processes
• Policy framework
• Awareness understanding of responsibilities
• Training identify address needs
• Team approach

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Conclusion

• Electronic documents part of explicit knowledge
  resources
• Planned systematic approach
• Growing proportion
• Rapid rate of technological change
• Challenge to knowledge managers

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Thank you

• Prof Peter Lor
• Peter.Lor_at_up.ac.za

• Prof Retha Snyman
• Msnyman_at_postino.up.ac.za