Records Retention

Avoid “Self-Destructing” Messaging Apps

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Last week was Sunshine Week (March 15–21), when the Ohio Attorney General’s Office releases its updated Sunshine Laws Manual to help Ohioans and public employees understand their rights and duties under the Public Records and Open Meetings laws.

The 2026 edition includes a new directive from Attorney General Dave Yost advising public employees not to use apps that automatically delete messages—such as Signal, WhatsApp, or Snapchat—because records are retained based on the content of the record, not the platform it was created or sent on. Auto-deleting messages may violate the Public Records Act since they prevent proper retention and review.

Yost highlights the recent case Ohio v. Wade Steen, et al., in which two State Teachers Retirement System board members used secret, off-record communications about a $65 billion investment. A judge ruled they violated their fiduciary duties and barred them from future board service. Yost writes that such secrecy erodes public trust and harms public institutions.

The Attorney General’s Office also provides free Sunshine Laws training, as does the Auditor of State. In Ohio, public officials (or designees) must complete this training once per elected term, and sessions are open to the public.

A World Without Microfilm: How Local Governments are Leading the Charge in Digital Preservation – Part II

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Following last month’s blog post, this month’s post will discuss the current work that is being done by the Digital Initiatives & Standards Committee (DISC) and what the next steps are for creating a digital preservation guide for the State of Ohio.

DISC has partnered with state records organizations, including the Ohio Electronic Records Committee, the Ohio History Connection, and the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board. In conjunction with these partnerships, DISC has established three subcommittees to determine standards and best practices for electronic records. The Microfilm committee has been tasked to determine the cost-effectiveness and long-term reliability of microfilm. Initial findings include: a significant price increase in microfilm supplies, a lack of product options, the impracticality of microfilm accessibility, and the obsolescence of microfilm equipment and repair.

If local governments decide to forego microfilm as a document preservation option and go the route of digital preservation, the Microfilm Subcommittee recommends the following to be considered:

  • Update retention schedules to reflect retaining electronic media and removing microfilm;
  • Plan to digitize microfilm (priorities, cost, staff, and time);
  • Research and invest in a digital preservation system.

The Minimum Standards Subcommittee has been meeting and working on coming up with digital standards, which include the following objectives:

  • Preferred digital file types (including DPI (dots per inch) and compression standards);
  • Standard and uniform naming conventions of records;
  • Implementing quality control standards when scanning records;
  • Applying sufficient metadata for searchability purposes.

The Security Subcommittee has discussed best practices for the security of electronic records. The following recommendations have been proposed:

  • Access/Restriction to certain records;
  • Understanding the difference between an access copy and a preservation copy, and what electronic document format they should be in;
  • Establishing the security controls for staff and internal/external users
  • Understanding explicitly the contract when dealing with a third-party system;
  • Having a disaster recovery plan in place.

Each of the three subcommittees will be compiling a report to address/review with the entire Digital Initiatives and Standards Committee this year. DISC hopes to have an Archives & Records Administration Permanent Electronic Records Guideline released in 2027. 

Social Media and Live Broadcast Video Records

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Facebook announced an update regarding their Live Video storage policy three weeks ago. Beginning on February 19th, any new live broadcasts can be replayed, downloaded or shared from Facebook Pages or profiles for 30 days. After 30 days, these live broadcasts will automatically be removed from Facebook. Any archived live videos older than 30 days will be removed from Facebook after 90 days. Before the deletion of these videos, Facebook will notify you via email and through the Facebook app informing you that you will have 90 days to download or transfer your live broadcast videos.

To ensure that these live video broadcasts are preserved, you will have the opportunity to download the live broadcast videos to your device, transfer them to your cloud storage, or convert them to a new reel. Facebook provides directions on the various ways to do these procedures. Updating Our Facebook Live Video Storage Policy | Meta

According to this announcement, Meta is making these changes to align with their storage policies with industry standards and to help ensure that Meta is providing the most up-to-date live video experiences for all on Facebook.

This is a concern for several reasons:

1. Social media companies control how long these potential records will be available in a social media platform.

2. Potential government agencies that use Facebook Live video broadcasts (especially during the pandemic) could lose records of the office unless they start downloading the videos now. This could result in more electronic records needing to be stored on government servers, which will increase storage space/cost money to preserve.

If you are an entity that uses Facebook live video broadcasts and has a social media archiving software program, i.e., – ArchiveSocial, research if these live broadcasts are being captured and preserved permanently. If you do not have an archiving social media software program that preserves these records, begin a plan on how your entity will start preserving these records incrementally.