In regulated industries, "Inbox Zero" can be a legal liability if you delete the wrong thing. Archiving is not just about saving space; it's about staying out of jail.
1. The Legal Requirement
- HIPAA (Healthcare): Must retain patient communications for 6 years.
- FINRA (Finance): Broker-dealers must archive all business emails in "WORM" (Write Once Read Many) format. This ensures that once an email is stored, it literally cannot be modified or deleted until the retention period expires, preventing evidence tampering.
- GDPR (Europe): The "Right to be Forgotten" conflicts with archiving. You need a system that can surgically delete a specific user's data while keeping the rest compliant.
2. Backup vs Archiving
- Backup: A snapshot of the server for disaster recovery. "Restore the server to how it looked yesterday." Backups are overwritten frequently.
- Archiving: A searchable index of every email ever sent or received. "Find the specific email John sent to Mary 3 years ago about the Project X contract." Archives are immutable.
- Legal Hold: If a lawsuit starts, you must be able to "freeze" deletion policies for relevant users.
3. Barracuda / Mimecast
These are the industry leaders for automated journaling and archiving. Do not rely on local .pst files on your laptop for compliance. If that laptop is lost, you have a data breach.
Key Takeaway
Compliance is binary: you are either compliant or you are negligent. Invest in a proper archiving solution like Mimecast or Barracuda. It is an insurance policy that pays for itself the moment you receive a subpoena.
ComplianceLegalBusiness
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