North Carolina law says: The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people. (GS 132-1(b))This powerful commitment to transparency wouldn’t mean much if the custodians of public records could simply destroy any or all records, at will. Accordingly, the law makes […]
Posts Tagged ‘records retention’
Email as Public Record: Five Things You Should Know [Updated]
Monday, February 20th, 2017This is an update of my January 27th, 2010 blog post on this topic. You probably already know that the definition of public records in our state law is extremely broad, and certainly includes electronic records like email. This means that email is subject to both the public access and records retention aspects of that law. Here’s […]
Using Private Email for Public Business: Is it Illegal in North Carolina?
Thursday, March 12th, 2015News about Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of private emails and a “homebrew” server raised both political and legal issues. I’ll leave the political issues to the pundits, and I’m not an expert in federal records retention requirements. But I thought our readers might be interested in how these issues would play out under North Carolina’s […]
Law Enforcement Video Camera Records: An Ongoing National Debate About Transparency
Thursday, February 26th, 2015In my post here, I described how North Carolina’s public records laws may apply to law enforcement body and vehicle video camera records. [I’ve recently updated that post to note a newly promulgated records retention standard for these records.] The push for transparency and for more documentation of law enforcement-citizen interactions through the use of video […]
Preserving Minutes and Other Permanent Records
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010The clerk to a local governing board writes that her board, like most boards these days, is interested in finding ways to save money. Two of their ideas deal with maintaining minutes of board meetings.…