New Ferris Report: The Current State of Email Retention Policies

Organizations are confused about how long to keep emails. Some delete almost everything after 60 days, in case they are caught as a miscreant during e-discovery. Others keeps everything indefinitely, and many take a middle course. Few are satisfied that their approach is the right one.

A new report from Ferris Research, “The Current State of Email Retention Policies,” discusses today’s situation. It incorporates data from a survey of 22 organizations representing more than 443,000 mailboxes running Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, GroupWise, and other email platforms. It also presents Ferris Research’s interpretation of the findings.

We discuss the key drivers behind the need to establish email retention policies, the policies that respondents have implemented, and the challenges they face in defining and enforcing these policies. Key findings include:

• Litigation holds and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) are the largest drivers for retention policies. These are followed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
• Some 14% of the respondents (three of the 22 organizations surveyed) still rely solely on end-user archives such as personal storage tables (PSTs) or GroupWise archives for retention.
• Organizations treat unified messaging (UM) voicemail differently from email. The lack of discoverability is driving some organizations to avoid archiving voicemails.
  
• Heavily regulated or litigious businesses have the most complex retention policies and, thus, more costly storage and technology investments.
• Less-regulated markets typically adopt simple retention policies, such as 60-, 90-, or 120-day retention schedules managed through quotas and simple “spring cleaning” mailbox management.
• A dwindling but still significant number of respondents continue to use backups for retention.

The report can be downloaded here. There is no charge to do so. ... David Ferris

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