Court
rules emails as evidence
SOCS has email
archiving solution
In December 2006, the Supreme Court amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) of disclosure. This amendment states that any entity involved in litigation must be able to produce certain "electronically stored information" (ESI) during discovery—a process in which opposing sides of a legal dispute share evidence before a trial.
Simply stated, ESI includes email, as well as any other computer-generated file, produced by employees of a public, private or governmental office. This includes schools.
Although the amendment does leave room for parties to determine what is reasonably accessible and takes into account the “cost and burden” to the responding party, school districts could still be exposed to costly legal actions if they fail to manage electronically stored information appropriately under the new federal requirements.
As with any legal issue, FES encourages you to consult legal counsel on FRCP, and to review the guidelines regulated by your state. States make their own rules that apply in their own courts, but most states have adopted rules that are based on the FRCP.
For instance, in Texas, state legislation recommends storage for electronic media for at least 10 years. Retention schedules vary depending on the subject matter, but any record, including emails, that are destroyed before the required time frame is a Class A misdemeanor and, under certain circumstances, a third degree felony.
However, the cost and burden of tracking, storing and retrieving emails can seem overwhelming to any school district. That’s why we enhanced SOCSmail to include archiving so that we can keep storage costs low.
Our active archiving component captures emails inbound and outbound and makes them web accessible for administrative access. Emails are backed up and stored with optimum security for as many years deemed necessary. Our retrieval service will restore archived data upon request.
For more information about the ruling, see the eSchool News article, Ruling: School must archive email.
Want to find out more? Read about SOCSmail or email us at socs@fes.org.
