Email Retention Rules
Summary:
As of June 3, 2022, TTI has implemented an email retention policy that affects all TTI employees. The policy is twofold. First, email contained in or under an employee's "Inbox" folder is subject to a 120-day retention schedule. Any email 120 days old or older that is contained in or under an employee's "Inbox" will be automatically and permanently deleted. Second, email contained in an employee's "Deleted Items" folder is subject to a 15-day retention schedule. Any email 15 days old or older that is contained in or under an employee's "Deleted Items" folder will be automatically and permanently deleted.
Why do we have this policy?
Retaining email that is not needed incurs risk to the individual and the Agency. Laws such as the Texas Public Information Act, as well as legal discovery requirements can result in real cost in time and dollars for the Agency. As a real example, in a recent request, researchers and compliance team members spent over 200 hours collecting, categorizing, and excluding 50,0000 emails that were identified as falling within the search criteria. In general, if an email doesn't need to be kept for compliance or retention purposes, it should be deleted.
Is ALL of my email subject to this policy?
No. In fact, NONE of your email is necessarily subject to this policy given that you organize it in or under a folder other than Inbox or Deleted Items. However, since new email first comes into your account via the Inbox, you must take action to move it if you want to keep it.
Where can I move email to prevent it from being deleted?
Anywhere except in or under your Inbox or Deleted Items.
Do these rules apply to a shared mailbox or resource mailbox?
No. The retention policy is only applied to individual mailboxes and does not apply to shared or resource mailboxes.
Where can I move email to prevent it from being deleted?
Anywhere except in or under your Inbox or Deleted Items.
Are these the ONLY email retention rules that we will ever have?
It's likely that other retention rules could be implemented in the future, but no other rules are planned at this time.
Who can I contact for further information?
Both the CIO and ACIO of the Agency can answer questions about this policy.