A simple 5 step guide to email compliance, specifically geared to the non-technical amongst us.

With 26 billion e-mails whizzing round the world in any one day, and the numbers going up, email compliance is a matter that many companies often put on the ‘back burner’.  The consequences of this approach can result in litigation, financial penalties, HR problems as well as damage to company reputation.  Corporate governance requires organizations retain their records for a specific period of time, which by default includes e-mails. Although much legislation pre-dates the Internet the regulations relating to email are subject to the same ones as paper documents. 

With many regulatory requirements being unearthed such as Sarbanes-Oxley, the Data Protection Act (European Union), Freedom of Information Act (UK) etc that often contradict each other, this article aims to shed some light on this area and provide you with five basic rules for email compliance that will protect you from potential litigation whilst at the same time provide you with some user benefits.  Effective email compliance does not have to be expensive and with data storage costs currently in the region of £1 per gigabyte they are affordable.

Rule 1
The first rule is to take responsibility for archiving emails away from the user.  Don’t burden them with the decision making process of selecting which e-mail is important and which one is not, simply automate the whole process.  Capture all e-mails that have been sent or received either internally or externally in their original format and archive them permanently in a secure place.