Minnesota State Archives

Electronic Records Management Guidelines

Introduction

Summary

You routinely create, use, and manage information electronically in your daily work as you use computers to send e-mail, create spreadsheets, publish web pages, manage databases, and create other electronic materials. Because you work for a government agency, Minnesota and federal laws mandate that you treat that information as official government records.

You probably already have a strategy to manage your paper records. With the growing pervasiveness and importance of electronic records, you should also develop a strategy to manage electronic records.

Common Questions

As you begin the process of developing an electronic records management strategy, you will find yourself asking many questions, including:

  • Which Minnesota laws apply to electronic records?
  • How do we use electronic records to help ensure public accountability while ensuring that not-public records are protected?
  • Who is responsible for developing our electronic records management strategy?
  • How do we dispose of electronic records?
  • Should we manage our electronic records differently from our paper records?
  • How do we know what information is an electronic record?
  • Is an electronic copy of a record an acceptable substitute for the original?
  • Does an electronic record have the same legal significance as a paper record?

Legal Framework

The Minnesota laws governing records management address these questions. Therefore, your understanding of existing Minnesota statutes is crucial as you begin to develop your electronic records management strategy.

Electronic records, just like paper records, are subject to specific Minnesota statutes that you must understand and comply with, including general records laws and electronic records laws. General records laws include:

Electronic records laws include:

Official Records Act
The Official Records Act is a general records law that mandates that "all officers and agencies" at all levels of government "shall make and preserve all records necessary to a full and accurate knowledge of their activities." This mandate reflects a concern for accountability: since government spends public money on public services, government agencies must be accountable to citizens, government administrators, courts, the legislature, financial auditors, and to history—that is, to future generations. Under the Official Records Act, your agency's chief administrative officer is responsible for creating and preserving government records, including electronic records. This statute also allows you to copy records to another format or storage medium and still preserve the authenticity, reliability, and legal admissibility of the record, as long as the copies are made in a trustworthy process.

Records Management Act
The Records Management Act recognizes that creating comprehensive records and preserving them forever would be an impossibly expensive burden. Instead, the Act creates a mechanism for the orderly and accountable disposition of records in the form of the Records Disposition Panel. The Act also makes the state's Department of Administration (the Information Policy Analysis Division specifically) responsible for overseeing the records management process.

Records Disposition Panel Members
The Records Disposition Panel includes the:

  • Attorney General, for expertise on the legal value of records

  • Director of the Minnesota Historical Society, for expertise on the historical value of records

  • Legislative Auditor (for state agencies) or State Auditor (for local agencies), for expertise on the accounting value of records

Records Disposition Panel Functions
The panel reviews, evaluates, and then approves or disapproves requests to dispose of records, to transfer records, and to establish records retention schedules. Fundamentally, the panel provides oversight, but does not initiate any actions. If your agency wants to keep records forever, then you never have to work with the panel. However, if your agency wants to do anything else legally with your records, you must submit your proposal to the panel for approval.

Minnesota Government Data Practices Act
The MGDPA assumes that government records (including electronic records) should be accessible to the public. Citizens should know what the government is doing, because the government must be accountable to the public. However, government agencies create some records that are confidential or sensitive, such as child protection records and adoption records. So, while in theory all records are presumed to be publicly accessible, many exceptions exist. Only the Minnesota state legislature defines these exceptions. Any organization, public or private, that improperly releases data covered by the act could suffer significant penalties.

Uniform Electronic Transactions Act and Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce
UETA and E-Sign were both enacted in 2000. Both laws intend to facilitate the use of information technology in government and business by addressing the legal obstacles that exist in a system oriented towards paper records and signatures.

The primary message of the laws is that a court may not determine that an electronic record or signature is untrustworthy simply because it is in an electronic format. A court can, though, reject electronic records and signatures because a government agency is creating, using, or managing them in an untrustworthy system or manner. One indicator of untrustworthiness would be an agency's failure to respect the laws governing records.

Guidelines

Because these laws set forth general principles that do not always translate easily into specific technological terms, the State Archives Department of the Minnesota Historical Society has developed a series of guidelines on basic electronic records management topics within the context of these laws.

Purpose of the Guidelines
These guidelines should serve as a starting point and a guide as you review your electronic records management practices and develop an electronic records management strategy. Each set of guidelines provides an overview of key concepts within the applicable legal framework, a section containing questions to spark discussion, and an annotated list of resources to use for more detailed research. We recommend that you begin by reading the Electronic Records Management Strategy guidelines for a general introduction to key concepts.

Guidelines in the Series
Guidelines in the series include:

  • Electronic Records Management Strategy. Read this set of guidelines first for basic, key concepts in electronic records management.

  • Long-Term Preservation. Learn about the steps to developing a long-term electronic records preservation plan.

  • Metadata. Introduce yourself to metadata, its functions, and its importance in managing electronic records. Become familiar with specific metadata standards.

  • File Naming. Learn about the importance of including a file naming policy in your electronic records management strategy.

  • File Formats. Review descriptions of common file formats and a summary of the issues regarding converting or migrating files.

  • Storage Facilities and Procedures. Learn about physical storage space options and access procedures.

  • Digital Media. Review digital media storage options (e.g., magnetic tape, optical disk) for your electronic records.

  • Electronic Document Management Systems. Introduce yourself to electronic records issues that may arise as you seek to integrate and manage the records management process with an electronic document management system.

  • Digital Imaging. Introduce yourself to digital imaging, its uses, and legal considerations. Review recommendations for implementing digital imaging projects.

  • E-mail Management. Consider the issues involved in extending your electronic records management strategy to your e-mail messages.

  • Web Content Management. Learn how to develop a policy for managing your web content that meshes with your electronic records management strategy.

  • Electronic and Digital Signatures. Learn about the distinction between electronic and digital signatures, and the legal considerations surrounding their use.

  • Glossary. Look up key terms in the guidelines.

Annotated lists of resources are available with each of the guidelines.

Electronic Records Management Strategy go to Electronic Records Management Strategy

Go to Table of Contents

Electronic Records Management Guidelines, March 2004, Version 4.

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