Deletion of emails

You asked

I would be grateful if you could provide a copy of your agency/department's current policy/guidance to staff relating to the deletion of emails.

I am also seeking the following information, if it is not contained within the above documents:

1. An answer as to whether your organisation has a general policy on automatically deleting emails after a certain period of time. If so, what type of emails are deleted (e.g. calendar invites/sent items/inbox items/all items) and after what period of time?

2. I note that National Archives guidance states that organisations should "define clearly which emails need to be kept for business or historical value". Please provide your organisation's definition.

3. Details of your organisation's policy on routinely deleting dormant accounts/those of former staff (i.e. what type of emails are deleted and after what period of time?)

We said

Thank you for your request.

We do not currently hold guidance documents or policies for staff relating to the deletion of emails as it is the responsibility of the individual to manage this.

The answers to your questions are as follows;

1. Emails are not currently auto-deleted. It is up to the individual to manage their information and ensure that emails which form a record are stored in the Electronic Document Records Management system.

2. Our definition of a record, that applies to digital (including emails) and paper records;

   'Any information created, received or maintained, for or on behalf of ONS to aid or facilitate the conduct of its business and/or which contains information that is worth preserving for longer term access.'

3. Unfortunately, we do not hold a specific policy on the routine deletion of dormant accounts, or, those accounts belonging to former staff, but we do have a process for this. When staff leave the organisation, from a leavers request, a task is sent to the relevant team to request the mail box be deleted. This will close the account and delete everything, all emails and content of the email account from our system within two weeks of them leaving. Once deleted, it is permanently removed from our system.