FIT Email Retention

As a public institution in New York State where Freedom of Information laws are broad, FIT is legally required to review and produce documents and data—including email—at the public’s request, regardless of the purpose of the request, with limited exceptions. FIT is subject to review by any number of agencies charged with enforcing certain legal and compliance obligations. The scope and burdens of such reviews can greatly increase when we keep more information for terms longer than are required by New York State Archives Record Retention and Disposition Schedule LGS-1.

To aid in this best practice behavior for email, on April 4, 2019, FIT moved to an email retention program in which all emails older than eight (8) years are deleted automatically, including archived messages, chat histories, attachments, and emails that have been moved to Labels (referred to as “folders” in Outlook).