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Documents, correspondence and other records created in the course of contractual dealings between individuals and agencies, especially where the subjects are of long duration and may be subject to legal scrutiny at undefined points in the distant future. |
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Group: Digital Legal Records |
Trend: No change |
Consensus Decision |
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Added to List: 2017 |
Last update: 2018 |
Previous category: Endangered |
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Imminence of Action Action is recommended within three years, detailed assessment within twelve months |
Significance of Loss The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on many people and sectors. |
Effort to Preserve It would require a small effort to preserve materials in this group, with the deployment of proven tools or techniques. |
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Examples Contracts, receipts, correspondence, license agreements, building consent, warranties, and any other document or record that represents a legally binding transaction or permission. Such records may be useful in the avoidance or resolution of disputes whether in court or prior to proceedings. Includes Online Terms and Conditions for e-commerce or end-user agreements for services. |
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‘Critically Endangered’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Loss of context; loss of authenticity or integrity; external dependencies; poor storage; lack of understanding; churn of staff; poorly framed or over-zealous disposal; ill-informed records management; misplaced fears with respect to data protection, encryption. |
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Vulnerable in the Presence of Good Practice Well managed data infrastructure; preservation enabled at the point of creation; carefully managed authenticity; use of persistent identifiers; finding aids; well managed records management processes; application of records management standards |
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2019 Review This entry is a subset of an entry made in 2017 for ‘Digital Legal Records and Evidence’ which the Jury has decided to split into four more discrete entries this year. It has significant overlap with a separate entry about Pension Mortgage and Insurance Records, except that those are created explicitly with the expectation that they are tied to long-lifecycle products and are held by long lived agencies who provide those products. This entry notes that many digital records have value over the long term which may not be immediately obvious at the point of creation. |
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Additional Jury Comments Legal agreements should be dealt with through records management standards and processes with agencies who have experience of handling this. |
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