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Data/Records Retention
• Practice of retaining copies of business or personal
Data Retention and records over time
• Volume and complexity of data in Organisations
Security increases daily
• Important to manage this:
• Comply proactively with industry regulations and
internal policies
• Reduce your risk in the event of litigation or a security
breach by permanently deleting old content that you're
no longer required to keep.
• Help your organization to share knowledge effectively
and be more agile by ensuring that your users work only
with content that's current and relevant to them.
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Data Retention Policy
Why Data Retention Policy
• Organization’s established protocol for
retaining information for operational • Part of data management strategy
or regulatory compliance needs. • Data increases quickly and can pile up
• Determines how to organize information for →Important to specify how long data can
access or search later, also disposal of be kept
information that is no longer needed.
→Must be done for as long as data is
• A comprehensive data retention policy needed
outlines the business reasons for retaining
specific data and what to do with it when
targeted for disposal. • Data is expensive to keep!
→ managing, archiving and securing
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Advantages of Data Retention Policy Advantages of Data Retention Policy
• Automated compliance. With an established policy, organizations
• Security can ensure they comply with regulatory requirements mandating
It provides the organisation with a sense of security as in all the the retention of various types of data.
records are saved and stored without any fear of being leaked out
to the public by competitors. Secondly all the records are in a • Reduced likelihood of compliance related fines. Even if an
position to be restored when the need arises with zero chances of organization retains all the data that's legally required, the
being lost. organization must be able to produce that data if it's requested by
auditors. Retaining only the minimally required volume of data
• Saved litigation costs makes it easier and less time-consuming to locate this data,
If in case a company is unable to produce a certain document or thereby reducing the chances that an organization is fined for its
information which is of legal or personal importance then the inability to produce data that's required to be retained.
company may face severe penalties and fines leading to added
litigation costs. This happens when data is deleted. Records • Reduced storage costs. There's a direct cost associated with data
retention helps in recovering age old legal data too. storage and reducing the volume of data that is being stored also
reduces storage costs.
• Saved storage costs
Storage of huge number of records take a lot of time, money and • Increased relevancy of existing data. Data becomes less relevant
labour for which companies need to hire people, waste paper, as it ages, and a data retention policy removes irrelevant data
printing ink and files. This can be reduced by simply opting for a that's no longer needed.
record retention policy. • Reduced legal exposure. Once data is no longer needed, it's
removed, eliminating the possibility that the data can be surfaced
during legal discovery and used against the organization.
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Data Retention Policy Best Practices Data Retention Policy Best Practices
• When it comes to creating a data retention policy,
every organization's needs are different. • Identifying business
requirements. Creating an effective data
• Even so, there are several best practices that retention policy involves more than just
organizations should adhere to when establishing complying with applicable regulations.
a data retention policy. The retention policy must also take the
organization's business requirements into
• Some of these best practices include: account. It could be that there are
• Identifying legal requirements. Organizations must operational requirements that mandate
determine the laws and regulations that govern their retaining data for longer than what's
data retention requirements so those requirements legally required.
can be incorporated into the data retention policy.
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Data Retention Policy Best Practices Data Retention Policy Best Practices
• Considering data types when crafting a • Adopting a good data archiving system. If
data retention policy. In any organization regulatory requirements require certain
some data is more valuable than other types of data to be retained for longer than
data. An organization should avoid the data is needed by the business, then
creating a blanket data retention policy consider adopting a data archiving system.
that applies to all types of data. Instead, A data archival system can help reduce the
the policy should specifically define the cost of storing archival data,
type of data that must be retained and while automating data lifecycle
establish retention requirements for each management and giving you the tools to
type. locate data in the archives.
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Data Retention Policy Best Practices Data Retention Policy Best Practices
• Having a plan for legal hold. If the • Creating two versions of your data
retention policy. If an organization is
organization is involved in litigation then it subject to regulatory compliance, it will
will likely need to pause the data lifecycle likely have to document its data retention
management process so the data that was requirements to satisfy regulatory
subpoenaed won't be automatically mandates. This is a formally written
deleted once it reaches the end of its document that can be filled with legal
retention period. jargon. As a best practice, consider drafting
a simpler version of the document that can
be used internally as a way of helping
stakeholders in the organization better
understand retention requirements.
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