Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
9/11/2015
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) mismanagement of email records, which has “remained largely unresolved” since a 2010 review first identified recordkeeping problems, "could significantly impact [DOE’s] ability to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, ongoing litigation, or law enforcement efforts,” the DOE Inspector General (IG) said in a report released this week.
The DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) "had not implemented a process” for email records management consistent with federal guidelines, and “relied on users to identify and retain email records,” the Sept. 3 report says. It adds that “in most cases, users were unaware that they were even responsible for identifying which emails should be retained,” while “the Chief Information Officer . . . had not established an effective mechanism for retaining email records.”
The DOE also lacked guidelines on the use of personal email accounts for government work, which could make "archival and retrieval of potential records difficult or impossible," the report says. Although the review found a lack of controls within some organizations "to prohibit an individual from sending or receiving work-related email from their personal non-government accounts,” the IG said it did not “test whether any particular individual’s email had been properly maintained.”
The report also notes that despite 2012 instructions for federal agencies “to manage all email records using an automated software application by the end of 2016,” the application has only been implemented in “one of the programs and sites reviewed.” The DOE was also required to train its employees on managing federal records but did not do so, the report says.
To address the ongoing issues, the IG recommends “a coordinated approach among programs and sites,” records management training for employees, and the use of records management software applications. DOE management agreed with the recommendations and said in the report “that the Records Management Office will develop a policy that provides additional guidance for managing email and will launch records management training . . . for Federal and contractor personnel.”
