INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
The Impact of Data Protection Laws on Your Records Retention Schedule BY TOM COREY
Article first appeared in ARMA Magazine 18 April 2022
It is essential that your organization’s records retention schedule is compliant with the data protection requirements in the jurisdictions where your organization operates. This task may seem overwhelming since jurisdictions around the world are enacting new laws, regulations, and requirements; and organizations are continuing to expand their jurisdictional footprint. The purpose of this article is to remove the fear and intimidation of domestic and global data protection laws and show how these laws and requirements are consistent with the existing objectives of your records retention schedule and information governance policy.
DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF A RECORDS RETENTION SCHEDULE
defines the retention period for those records. Once the record is retained for the defined retention period, the record is then disposed of.
The records retention schedule is the foundational document for a records management program. The records retention schedule is a policy that identifies the types of records created and/or retained by an organization. These records are typically organized by grouping them by function or department and then described as either an individual record or grouped together into a record category. The records retention schedule then
In addition to complying with legal requirements associated with records retention, a records retention schedule addresses the organization’s need to retain information of value and dispose of records that have little to no value. By doing this, an organization retains necessary business information while saving money and resources by disposing of unnecessary information that would otherwise drive up the cost of storage, data migration, and litigation. iQ | 47
