Archiving paper records in digital format is touted as a long-term solution to the problems of filing and being able to find the millions of paper records companies in SA create each year. However, the simplicity and convenience of digital records today, can lead to the corporate nightmare of inaccessible records and failure to meet legal regulations tomorrow.
"No matter how simple it may be to store and retrieve electronic records, the changing nature of IT means constant evolution in which new technologies are frequently created to replace older ones," says Paul Mullon, marketing director of Metrofile. "This makes storing records digitally more of a potential risk than the old paper filing cabinet."
Generally, we can easily read a document written on paper 200 or more years ago, but can we read an electronic document stored 20 years ago? Even Nasa has lost the ability to access the data stored on tape in real-time from its 1976 Viking landings on Mars.
While digital records are sure to survive for years on the optical or tape devices on which they are stored (excluding any unexpected disasters), the equipment and applications needed to access the records will not. "How many people still have information stored on old 5.25-inch floppy disks," Mullon asks, "and how many still have the drives able to read these disks?"
Updating the media on which data is stored to current technology at regular intervals can assist in ensuring that information is always readable. However, this is a long, costly and tiresome job involving reading of data off old media and saving it onto new.
"Unfortunately, there is no other way to ensure data remains readable," notes Mullon. "Records of assurance policies need to be kept until the policy is paid up or a claim has been settled - a possible time span of 70 years. Attempting to keep older hardware to read this data when required is also an option, but can a company also keep the people with the skills to operate the technology and repair it?"
Once the hardware component is dealt with, the software component remains. Put simply, the computer still needs to understand the format the data is stored in to prevent it from simply reading a list of meaningless data. "Look at the problems experienced when Microsoft released Office 97 with a new Word document format that was not compatible with previous versions. Due to customer demand, it had to release a separate patch to allow old and new versions to interoperate. And that was simply the next release of the application. What happens when a six-year-old record needs to be retrieved using software not as widely used as Word?"
One could convert data to new formats each time the media is updated, but converting data is not that simple either. With every conversion to a new format one can expect a slight degradation. Copying it once is generally not a problem, but over years something from the original will most likely vanish and these changes can alter the nature of the data.
"The best solution to this problem is standards-based data formats," adds Mullon. "Using standards, each application will store data in a format other applications can read, no matter which vendor created the application." XML and its derivatives already offer a potential standard format that can be read across applications and, if created properly, even across time. Unfortunately, convincing vendors to cooperate and make use of standards without adding their own creativity and customer lock-in is near impossible.
A new initiative to develop a standard archival format for electronic records that would remain constant over the long term is under development. A programme such as this would allow corporations to store their records in one format for the duration of their legal lives, negating many of the frustrations described above.
According to the ECT Act, electronic records are admissible in court in place of paper, opening the door to more controllable and simpler electronic document management. However, legislation also stipulates minimum lengths of time these records need to be kept, making the data format conundrum a critical aspect of any records management policy.
There is no easy solution. Executives implementing electronic records management solutions therefore need to ensure their companies take the necessary precautions to make certain their data is accessible and readable over its life. Anyone failing to take this aspect of digital documentation into account would be better off staying with paper.
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Metrofile is the South African market leader in the management of business documents, and is committed to help customers reduce costs and improve productivity in processes that are centred on documents and corporate records.
All companies have a combination of paper and electronic documents, and are forced by law and customer requirements to secure the availability of the documents for the duration of their lifecycle. For most organisations, the volume of documents is growing at an exponential rate, and is becoming increasingly difficult to manage.
Metrofile is uniquely positioned to provide consulting and implementation of full lifecycle paper and electronic records management solutions from storage and conversion through to destruction.
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