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Why are electronic records important?

The IT revolution which escalated in the latter half of the twentieth century has resulted in the proliferation of electronic office systems. These encompass the hardware and software for automating business processes and activities of many kinds. One significant side-effect of this revolution is that records are created and maintained electronically - either in parallel with or instead of their paper counterparts.

Records, regardless of their media, are invaluable not only to organisations and individuals but to society as a whole. They form the basic building blocks for democratic and transparent systems of government and commerce. They provide proof of contracts and other obligations, or of delivery of goods and services. They document society's commitment to protect the rights of citizens and human rights more generally, as well as providing evidence of adherence or abuse. Records are distinct from other forms of information, such as published material, in that they document or provide evidence of an activity, a decision or an agreement. They are created in the course of business processes and activities and are used both to support further activity and to provide accountability.

Thus good recordkeeping is essential for transparent and democratic governance as well as efficient and compliant business. Organisations need to ensure that adequate records will be created to document their activities, and that records will be effectively managed even when they remain on computer systems and are not printed to paper. The creation and maintenance of adequate electronic records is one of the greatest recordkeeping challenges of our era.

• In the 1990s, when the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration wanted to access its records of observations made during space flights over some thirty years, officials found that many of the tapes on which those observations had been recorded were damaged or lost. Those tapes which could be found were uncatalogued or unlabelled, and many of them could not be read using current technology.
• American census records from the 1960s were discovered to be unreadable because the hardware and software that would have been capable of reading them could not be located.
• Many electronic records of the former East German government are inaccessible to the citizens and present government of Germany because the relevant computer systems lack the necessary documentation and the records are held on obsolete media whose condition has deteriorated.

These are spectacular examples of failures in recordkeeping. On a smaller scale, almost all organisations are now finding that they can no longer gain access to the records of their activities from the time when paper was first replaced by electronic media. They can no longer prove that they did what was requested of them, or that policies and procedures were correctly followed.

How has this crisis arisen? Firstly because of the technical challenges of managing electronic records. Electronic media can be more sensitive and fragile than paper: they are also susceptible to obsolescence. Both hardware and software are constantly upgraded, and records created using earlier technology become unreadable. Electronic documents and data are usually easy to delete, and can be just as easy to amend or update. Both the survival and the readability of records can easily be endangered in the electronic environment.

Even when records survive, and can be read, further challenges remain: can the particular record that is wanted be found? Can it be understood? And can a user be sure of its authenticity? Divorced from the controls associated with paper-based filing systems, an electronic record may convey little meaning to those who need to use it, as there is often no visible evidence of the context in which it was first created. Particularly if a record is required in legal proceedings, it may also be necessary to prove that it is genuine and complete, and that it has remained secure from deliberate or accidental amendment. If electronic records have not been managed effectively, such proof will probably be impossible.

Designing and building systems that ensure the survival, accessibility and integrity of electronic records is a challenge that every organisation needs to meet.

Margaret Crockett and Geoffrey Yeo
University College London
July 2001

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This page was last updated on 24 August 2001