NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A6076
SPONSOR: Dinowitz TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the public officers law, in relation
to requiring the retention of all government emails for at least seven
years for all employees of New York State
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this bill is to ensure that employees of New York State
conduct business in a manner that will be open and transparent to the
public.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends the public officers law by adding a new article, 3-A,
which provides for guidelines and definitions for email use and
retention by state agency and executive staff personnel.
Section two of the bill is the effective date.
JUSTIFICATION:
The State of New York's current policy of using centralized software to
automatically delete state employee emails after 90 days undermines
public transparency and accountability, and reduces the public's trust
in their government. Automatically destroying the emails of state
employees after 90 days is highly likely to result in the destruction of
emails that are considered public records under New York's Freedom of
Information Law. Destroying email records also weakens other public
accountability laws like the False Claims Act.
In the digital age, government runs on email; access to government email
records is a cornerstone of public transparency. The United States
National Archives conducted a three year analysis of email retention
issues and concluded that email should be saved for a minimum of seven
years. Beginning in 2015, the federal government is saving all employee
emails for a minimum of seven years. Additionally, the Federal Records
Act Amendments of 2014 requires federal employees to use agency-assigned
emails for government business.
Accordingly, in order to make New York State government more transparent
and to ensure New York government is at least equal to the federal tran-
sparency standards for emails, and to ensure that emails are not acci-
dentally or deliberately destroyed, this bill requires the retention of
the emails of New York State government employees be saved for a minimum
of seven years, and requires state employees to use agency-issued email
addresses for agency business.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
This is a new bill.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the State.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
6076
2015-2016 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
March 12, 2015
___________
Introduced by M. of A. DINOWITZ -- read once and referred to the Commit-
tee on Governmental Operations
AN ACT to amend the public officers law, in relation to requiring the
retention of all government emails for at least seven years for all
employees of New York State
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. The public officers law is amended by adding a new article
2 3-A to read as follows:
3 ARTICLE 3-A
4 EMAIL USE AND RETENTION
5 Section 50. Definitions.
6 51. Personal email use.
7 52. Retention of email.
8 § 50. Definitions. As used in this article, the following terms are
9 defined as follows:
10 1. "State agency" is any agency, department, division, board, bureau,
11 office, council, commission, authority, public benefit corporation, or
12 other governmental entity performing a governmental or proprietary func-
13 tion for the state of New York, except the judiciary or the state legis-
14 lature.
15 2. "State email" is any electronic mail, including metadata, sent or
16 received by any state agency in pursuance of law or in connection with
17 the transaction of public business of a state agency, such as evidence
18 of an agency's organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures,
19 operations, or other activities, or that is relevant and useful to the
20 execution and implementation of ongoing agency work.
21 3. "Personal email account" is any email address and accompanying
22 account on any computer network which is configured to send electronic
23 mail, receive electronic mail, or both, except those provided to an
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD09890-01-5
A. 6076 2
1 employee of any state agency by the state agency which employs him or
2 her.
3 4. "Official email account" is the email address and accompanying
4 account on any computer network configured to send electronic mail,
5 receive electronic mail, or both, which is provided to an employee of
6 any state agency by the state agency which employs him or her.
7 § 51. Personal email use. 1. Employees of any state agency shall not
8 create or maintain state email by the use of any personal email
9 account.
10 2. In the event that any state email is sent from a third party to any
11 personal email account of any employee of any state agency, that employ-
12 ee shall forward that state email to his or her official email account
13 within five days.
14 § 52. Retention of email. 1. Each state agency shall retain state
15 email for a minimum of seven years.
16 2. Employees of executive staff and other senior state employees, as
17 determined by regulation, shall retain state email permanently.
18 3. Nothing in this section shall require or permit any employee of any
19 state agency to delete an email which is the subject of a request for
20 records under article six of this chapter, the subject of any records
21 retention schedule described in title U of the arts and cultural affairs
22 law, or the subject of any obligation to preserve records relating to
23 anticipated or filed litigation.
24 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
