Email Archiving/Compliance and The Law

	Business's increasingly use email and retrieving email during legal discovery is critical.  Electronic records are as important as paper documents and even hard-copy documents are usually copies of electronic ones.
	Organizations now have a clear responsibility to produce eRecords and there are consequences for non-compliance.  With NetStream Communications' Archiving solutions your past emails are instantly available and unaltered as the law requires.

Why Schools Should Archive | Features of NetStream Email Archiving | Pricing

Increasing litigation and the high cost for producing records during a legal discovery process are causing many organizations to rethink their electronic records storage and retrieval.  Amendments to the FRCP rules mandate that organizations know where their electronic records are stored and to have in place an effective system for retrieving them.

NetStream's email archiving and compliance solution is a state-of-the-art enterprise infrastructure that meets the highest industry standards for secure data storage e-discovery and government regulations.  All inbound, outbound and internal emails are immediately captured, indexed and copied for secure storage.

Who Should Archive Their Email?

• K-12 Educational Institutions - Why Should Schools Archive?
• Colleges and Universities
• Public and Private Business Organizations
• Government Organizations

Sarbanes-Oxley

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When legislators passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the intention was to make corporations more accountable and to set guidelines for proper record keeping. The legislation requires public companies to store all business records, including email, for at least five years.  Executives at companies that don't comply face fines and penalties, including possible jail time.

FRCP

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Most organizations fall under the FRCP the Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure. This rule affects just about every organization in the United States.

Rule 26 and Other Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

The newly amended Rule 26 (legislation approved in December 2006) and other changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP), which govern the production of evidence in most federal court cases, make the efficient management of corporate electronic records (eRecords) more important than ever. The 2006 amendment to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that public entities, including school districts, be able to produce electronically stored information from staff members, such as email and other digital communications, during the " discovery process" in lawsuits.  Failure to comply with the new electronic discovery (eDiscovery) rules can mean fines, sanctions, liability, and many other risks. Schools are required to maintain their emails for 7 years. See additional reasons why every school should and must archive.

HIPAA

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[Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996, Public Law 104-191] [PDF]
With current HIPAA security requirements, confidentiality and security will continue to be key components, making it necessary for healthcare organizations to encrypt messages containing patient information and since the NetStream Communications Archiving System is an archiving tool for these e-mails, encryption of the data is paramount especially with removable media such as the WORM tape device. The NetStream Communications archiving system incorporates encryption standards that exceed the HIPAA encryption strength requirements, and the archiving system provides an encrypted connection and storage of email data that exceeds all HIPAA standards.

The NetStream archiving system allows users to continue using existing email systems, while adding a security layer for encryption and authentication to archived data storage.
Our secure system enables hospitals and physician services to secure and store their email communications for partners, departments, and individuals over open networks easily and affordably. IT and the Compliance Officers can access secure email messages from any computer through encrypted 128 bit browser based access.

Others

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Gramm-Leach-Bliley Protecting consumer’s private information at various financial institutions.

SEC / NASD Securities and Exchange Commission / National Association of Securities Dealers, instituting long term storage of financial records and electronic communications.

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• The overwhelming use of technology to create and disseminate documents has heightened the need for email management
• Electronic records are as important as paper documents
• Many compliance-focused email archiving systems place an additional burden on your mail servers
• The cost of this implementation will be minimal compared to potential costs in civil judgments or federal noncompliance fines
• The majority of documents companies get are electronic -- the latest figure is 96%
• Even hard-copy documents are usually copies of electronic ones
• The new Rule 26(a) explicitly defines ESI (Electronically Stored Information) as a specific category of information to be disclosed. There is no longer any ambiguity about whether digital data constitutes a “document.” Organizations now have a clear responsibility to produce eRecords. These records specifically include email and Instant Messaging Communications.

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Many compliance-focused email archiving systems place an additional burden on your mail servers, as they rely on the messaging system's journaling feature. It is estimated that journaling adds about 15% additional overhead to already busy servers. For every one email that comes into your system, you have to send out two.  Email archiving requires tera-bytes of storage and compliance requires WORM (Write Once - Read Many) tapes drives, an additional cost to your organization and additional technical support systems to maintain.
With the remote hosted NetStream Archiving System your business has no upfront cost for a compliant solution.  Since archiving is just pure cost with no return on your investment why purchase an expensive solution.

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