E-mailberichten? Die gooi ik altijd weg.

In April 2013, my office received a complaint from Member of Provincial Parliament Peter Tabuns (MPP), alleging that Mr. Craig MacLennan, the former Chief of Staff to the former Minister of Energy, had a practice of routinely deleting all of his emails. The MPP took the position that this practice was inappropriate. Of particular concern was the fact that this former political staffer had been involved in discussions surrounding the cancellation of the gas plants which had attracted a great deal of media attention and was the subject of a review by the Legislature’s Standing Committee on Justice Policy. The review by the Standing Committee on Justice Policy stemmed from a 2012 motion by the Estimates Committee, and a subsequent Speaker’s ruling, for the production of documents related to the closure of the gas plants.
Upon receipt of this complaint, my office immediately launched an investigation. Of significant concern to both the complainant and my office was that, despite more than 56,500 pages of responsive records having been produced by the Ministry of Energy and the Ontario Power Authority (OPA), not one responsive record was produced by political staff in the Minister of Energy’s office.
During the course of the interviews we conducted as part of our investigation, we met with the Secretary of the Cabinet. During this interview, we learned that in early 2013, staff in the former Premier’s office had approached him, asking questions about how to permanently delete emails and other electronic documents. While the Secretary took steps to inform them of their obligations, I was very concerned with the prospect of inappropriate deletions of electronic records by political staff in the former Premier’s office. As a result, I decided to expand the scope of my investigation.
It is difficult to accept that the routine deletion of emails was not in fact an attempt by staff in the former Minister’s office to avoid transparency and accountability in relation to their work. Further, I have trouble accepting that this practice was simply part of a benign attempt to efficiently manage one’s email accounts.
While I cannot state with certainty that there was inappropriate deletion of emails by the former Premier’s staff as part of the transition to the new Premier in an effort to avoid transparency and accountability, I concluded that the email management practices of the former Premier’s office were in violation of the obligations set out in the ARA.
This failure to comply with the records retention requirements of the ARA, coupled with a culture of avoiding the creation of written and electronic records, assists in explaining the apparent paucity of documents relating to the gas plant closures produced by the offices of the former Minister of Energy and the former Premier.

Dit uitgebreid citaat komt uit de "Executive Summary" van het rapport Deleting Accountability: Record Management Practices of Political Staff van de Information and Privacy Officer van Ontario.
Het rapport is het verslag van een "speciaal onderzoek" van de commissaris en het is interessant - en helaas zelfs herkenbaar - leesvoer.
Vooral de passages over de "mondelinge" cultuur vind ik verhelderend:

We were told by MacLennan and Livingston that while there were frequent in-person meetings with the various players involved on the gas plants file, the only information that would generally be captured in writing would be an email proposing a meeting. MacLennan explained that the Minister’s office was a “very verbal office.” He would encourage his staff to talk through an issue face-to-face, instead of using a form of written documentation. We were told that the former Minister’s office kept a particularly hectic pace and that staff were always trying to manage high-profile issues and “put out fires.” He candidly stated that records management would have been one of the last things on the minds of political staff. This verbal culture may have been prevalent within the former Premier’s office as well. Livingston stated that meetings were held every morning but no notes were ever taken. In his view, verbal communications were sufficient and there was no need to document the information exchanged.

Maar lees vooral het hele rapport, want ook de passages over de pogingen om verwijderde e-mailberichten alsnog te redden zijn zeer informatief.

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E-mail is toch geen archief?
Nog maar eens over e-mail en archief (en de Wob)

Plaatje: Is email dead? van Cambodia4kids

Over de vernietiging van een wapenregistratie

Een groep meisjes van de schietclub staan in badpak op het strand en allen houden een geweer vast.
Californië, Verenigde Staten van Amerika, 1933

In Canada bestaat de Canadian Firearms Registry, een database waarin op basis van de Canadese wapenwet allerlei vuurwapens geregistreerd worden. Een speciaal onderdeel is het "long-gun registry" waarin sinds 2001 "geweren" geregistreerd worden. Sinds de invoering ervan ligt deze "geweer-registratie" onder vuur en binnenkort wordt de wet zodanig aangepast dat registratie van "long-guns" niet meer nodig is. In die wetswijziging - Bill C-19 - heeft de regering ook bepaald dat de bestaande registraties direct vernietigd moeten worden en dat hierbij de bepalingen uit de Library and Archives Act niet gelden. Dit betekent dat de vernietiging van de database kan plaatsvinden zonder formele goedkeuring van de "chief archivist."
Dit was uiteraard tegen het zere been van de Canadese archivarissen. De voorzitter van de Association of Canadian Archivists zei tegen de National Post:

“It sets a very dangerous precedent for future legislation,” said association president Loryl MacDonald. [...]
MacDonald said her group’s concern is not with the nature of the gun registry records themselves, but with a process she said undermines the government’s own practices for keeping records.
Archivists and bureaucrats typically meet to determine how long different kinds of government records should be kept. The Firearms Act, MacDonald said, required the gun registration listings be kept for 10 years after the “last administrative action” on each record.
“The government might proceed to go about over-riding other records schedules, and records that might have long-term value might be destroyed,” MacDonald said.

En ook Ian Wilson, de voormalige "chief archivist", liet van zich horen:

“They should trust the existing processes already enshrined in legislation,” Wilson told the Citizen on Tuesday.
The instruction to destroy records in Bill C-19 suggests the government ”doesn’t trust the process,” Wilson said.
“I dont think archivists are arguing the records should be retained, but the issue is process.”
[...]
Wilson says he suspects the gun registry records would not be worth retaining permanent, but says an achivist must do a professional review to determine if they should be kept.

Interessant in de hele discussie zijn ook de argumenten die de voorstanders van acute vernietiging gebruiken:
de registratie had überhaupt nooit bijgehouden moeten worden, de archiefstukken zijn niets waard en ze vormen een inbreuk op de privacy van Canadese burgers.

Firearms advocates say the government had no business collecting the long-gun registrations in the first place so the listings should be permanently erased.
In question period Monday, the NDP called the plan to destroy the records “a $2-billion bonfire,” in reference to the purported cost to establish the registry under the Liberal government. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews responded by saying the records it created have no value.
“Just because the Liberals spent $2-billion on a long gun registry does not mean it is worth anything,” Toews said. “In fact, the only thing it does is target law-abiding Canadian citizens improperly and is obtrusive in their private affairs.”

En daar voegt de National Post nog de volgende, voor mij ietwat raadselachtige, alinea aan toe:

The federal government has retained records of some of its most discredited programs. To make reparations, the government used documents related to the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War, the collection of head taxes from Chinese immigrants, and listings of First Nations children forced into residential schools, for example.

Zou de krant nu bedoelen dat archieven van "descredited programs" sowieso allemaal vernietigd moeten worden?
Of bedoelt de krant te zeggen dat dit juist niet zou moeten gebeuren, omdat je dan nog iets goed kunt maken?

Wat tenslotte ook nog interessant is - en dat sluit aan bij onze vingerafdrukken-discussie - is dat het geweren-register wordt beheerd door de RCMP - de Mounties - en deel uitmaakt van een veel groter register waar ook allerlei andere types vuurwapens in geregistreerd worden. Enkel het long-gun-deel moet nu vernietigd worden. Maar:

Destruction of the existing records may not be simple as pushing the “delete” button.
The RCMP would have created backup versions that, presumably, also will have to be destroyed. But that could be a complicated process if the records of non-restricted long-guns are integrated in the backup version with listings of other registered firearms that cannot be erased.

Morgen nog een stukje over problematische vernietiging in de Verenigde Staten...

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Interne e-mail is geen archief

Foto uit de collectie van het NA