4 ms·

What is the cost of storing public records versus destroying them? I'm betting there isn't really that much of a difference given the main consideration is dig

What is the cost of storing public records versus destroying them? I'm betting there isn't really that much of a difference given the main consideration is digital, not space.

zepto 5y ago
Is it? The records date back to 1991. Possibly a lot of them were still paper at that time.
kingcharles 5y ago
It's not the physical cost, it's the PR cost. A lot of the time the public body doesn't know what is in its files until someone makes a request, then they read the record and realize how many skeletons they have in their closet. No records = no skeletons; no bad PR. Better to destroy everything all of the time.
ssklash 5y ago
The key attribute of these records is disciplinary. Which just so happen to be subject to an unfulfilled freedom of information request. This is called police corruption.
alphabettsy 5y ago
The cost is likely PR and Legal. Appeals and investigations as a result of what the public might find could be very expensive and/or embarrassing.
decebalus1 5y ago
There are three costs basically: - storage, which is pretty darn cheap, easy to predict, easy to budget for, etc.. - retrieval for FOIA, which is easily quantified in workhours and sometimes deferred via fees. - liability, which is very hard to quantify, considering you never know what skeleton a nosy citizen would be able to uncover. The latter is mainly the reason public records disappear. I'm glad most parts of the US are still in the 'let's take this to court' territory. We should be very afraid if we go into the 'an unfortunate accident destroyed all the records' area of dealing with this stuff.
sergers 5y ago
As others have stated for legal liability purposes. If you werent legally required to store documents or there is a limitation on length, you wouldn't want to continue to store those records. I work alongside hospital radiology systems. Large organizations only keep what's required and are looking to purge all else (like deleting mammos after 15 years, pediatrics after 21... Requirements vary state to state in USA). So if a patient comes suing you with a malpractice in the future, they can say they no longer have the records (as they only kept till legally required). I doubt they would win a case solely on this but would definately help them. A vendor created a cloud archive solution for reports/images, with unlimited retention. Customers (hospital organizations) are demanding features for purging data aka "retention management". So I bet this happens in all industries/businesses
- zaphar 5y ago
  There is more to the liability than just the threat of malpractice. Holding data of a sensitive nature means you might accidentally leak that data. The more you hold the worse the leak is. Being able to delete that data enables you to somewhat control the blast radius of a leak.
- nieve 5y ago
  It's not just the non-police record holder's own liability, it's very common to be subpoenaed over a case you're not party to and those can easily turn into expensive fishing expeditions. No excuse for the cops and pretty clearly those requests can be entirely legit, but there are other organizations that have financial reasons to see old records as a liability. One employer that got massive numbers of subpoenas had a business requirement forbidding audit trails and logging because as soon as a lawyer saw any sign of logging they'd go digging. We were never sued, we were just a convenient source of legal ammunition.

What is the cost of storing public records versus destroying them? I'm betting there isn't really that much of a difference given the main consideration is digital, not space.

zepto 5y ago

Is it? The records date back to 1991. Possibly a lot of them were still paper at that time.

kingcharles 5y ago

It's not the physical cost, it's the PR cost. A lot of the time the public body doesn't know what is in its files until someone makes a request, then they read the record and realize how many skeletons they have in their closet. No records = no skeletons; no bad PR. Better to destroy everything all of the time.

ssklash 5y ago

The key attribute of these records is disciplinary. Which just so happen to be subject to an unfulfilled freedom of information request. This is called police corruption.

alphabettsy 5y ago

The cost is likely PR and Legal. Appeals and investigations as a result of what the public might find could be very expensive and/or embarrassing.

decebalus1 5y ago

There are three costs basically: - storage, which is pretty darn cheap, easy to predict, easy to budget for, etc.. - retrieval for FOIA, which is easily quantified in workhours and sometimes deferred via fees. - liability, which is very hard to quantify, considering you never know what skeleton a nosy citizen would be able to uncover. The latter is mainly the reason public records disappear. I'm glad most parts of the US are still in the 'let's take this to court' territory. We should be very afraid if we go into the 'an unfortunate accident destroyed all the records' area of dealing with this stuff.

sergers 5y ago

As others have stated for legal liability purposes. If you werent legally required to store documents or there is a limitation on length, you wouldn't want to continue to store those records. I work alongside hospital radiology systems. Large organizations only keep what's required and are looking to purge all else (like deleting mammos after 15 years, pediatrics after 21... Requirements vary state to state in USA). So if a patient comes suing you with a malpractice in the future, they can say they no longer have the records (as they only kept till legally required). I doubt they would win a case solely on this but would definately help them. A vendor created a cloud archive solution for reports/images, with unlimited retention. Customers (hospital organizations) are demanding features for purging data aka "retention management". So I bet this happens in all industries/businesses

zaphar 5y ago
There is more to the liability than just the threat of malpractice. Holding data of a sensitive nature means you might accidentally leak that data. The more you hold the worse the leak is. Being able to delete that data enables you to somewhat control the blast radius of a leak.
nieve 5y ago
It's not just the non-police record holder's own liability, it's very common to be subpoenaed over a case you're not party to and those can easily turn into expensive fishing expeditions. No excuse for the cops and pretty clearly those requests can be entirely legit, but there are other organizations that have financial reasons to see old records as a liability. One employer that got massive numbers of subpoenas had a business requirement forbidding audit trails and logging because as soon as a lawyer saw any sign of logging they'd go digging. We were never sued, we were just a convenient source of legal ammunition.