IRMS022 - Managing the email of the Netherlands government

IRMS podcast series

In this podcast Vincent Hoolt describes the new guidelines of the Netherlands government towards managing its own email.

The guidelines ask Netherlands government agencies to schedule the email accounts of selected key staff for permanent preservation. The officials concerned usually constitute around 5% of the headcount of an agency. The email within the accounts of other staff are retained for ten years. All individuals are able to delete or move personal and trivial email within a window of ten weeks after the email was sent/received.

The policy draws its inspiration from the Capstone approach adopted by NARA towards US federal government email.

Vincent talks about how the policy is working in practice, and the challenges of managing email accounts over time and in the context of GDPR.

Vincent Hoolt is Recordkeeping advisor at the Netherlands National Archives. Vincent was interviewed by James Lappin on 21 December 2020. The guidelines on managing Netherlands government email are available (in Dutch) from here .