The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is calling on Federal agencies to consider dedicating more resources to IT solutions that can automate the records retention of their social media records.
In a recent report that assessed ten agencies’ social media policies, NARA explained that while all agencies are required to capture social media (SM) records, the agencies assessed did not have processes in place to verify the capture of these records.
NARA found that most records management (RM) programs reported that they needed more staff, technological know-how, or technological tools to ensure the consistent capture and management of social media records.
The report recommended that agencies “should consider using digital archiving applications to centralize and automate the capture of SM records across the agency.”
Additionally, the report found that some agencies used third-party applications to capture their social media records for retention and disposition.
However, NARA said some of these applications did not offer “sufficient” electronic records management (ERM) capabilities “or required users to separately elect and pay for a la carte services to get ERM features, but most agencies did not pay for such services.”
For this reason, NARA recommended that agencies that rely on a third-party application to capture their social media records “must assess and confirm that the service provider offers ERM functionalities that sufficiently captures, preserves, and maintains its SM records per Federal recordkeeping requirements.”
NARA also said that these records “must be managed throughout their lifecycle and ensure that the application can maintain and export its SM records in file formats that meet NARA’s format guidance for transferring permanent electronic records.”
Overall, NARA recommended that agencies should dedicate more resources to IT solutions that can help agencies to automate their social media records-keeping duties.
