| Data retention has long been a vital business | | | | businesses to implement a comprehensive data |
| practice, allowing companies to use client | | | | retention system are the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, |
| information, assess company growth, and retrieve | | | | the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability |
| and manipulate data on past performance, all with | | | | Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and BASEL II. The |
| the goal of propelling business growth and | | | | Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposes strict |
| success. A number of factors contribute to a | | | | standards regarding the retention of accounting |
| company's need to retain data, such as future | | | | data, was overwhelmingly passed in 2002 by the |
| analyses of business processes and compliance | | | | United States House of Representatives and the |
| with government regulations that continue to lay | | | | Senate. HIPAA, commonly known as the Privacy |
| out stricter requirements regarding the retention, | | | | Rule, is a health industry standard aimed at |
| disclosure and disposal of business data. The | | | | allowing the flow of patients' health data for health |
| technological era has brought about a proliferation | | | | research purposes without disclosing an individual's |
| of electronic file data, spurring revolutionary | | | | "protected health information," and requiring |
| change in the way data is collected, retrieved, | | | | entities to preserve and be prepared to readily |
| archived and disclosed. | | | | disclose data for six years. Similarly, BASEL II |
| Businesses are faced with the challenge of | | | | places disclosure requirements on the financial |
| adhering to varying data retention requirements | | | | industry. |
| at the federal and state levels. Many recent laws | | | | Ever increasing data retention requirements also |
| have increased the length of time that businesses | | | | place monumental pressure on enterprise data |
| must retain data, placing increasing pressure on | | | | availability software companies to produce the |
| companies to institute data archiving systems | | | | most advanced archiving solutions with |
| with the capacity to securely store increasing | | | | tremendous capacities and prolonged reliability. |
| amounts of information, possibly for decades. | | | | Available data archiving solutions give companies |
| Besides placing time requirements on data | | | | the capability of storing great amounts of data |
| retention, regulations also require that data be | | | | that is no longer needed for business purposes in |
| secure, unable to be edited and produced on | | | | a protected, non-editable format in a location that |
| demand with short notice. To ensure security and | | | | will not affect the data that is crucial to business |
| that records are retained in a non-editable format, | | | | operations. Such systems can provide a user |
| organizations must have an archiving system | | | | friendly interface to streamline implementation of |
| separate from the operational and reference data | | | | a company's data archiving strategy, and |
| that is still needed for frequent business | | | | automatically discard information once it reached |
| transactions and queries. | | | | the mandatory data retention time frame. |
| Some notable sanctions propelling the need for | | | | |