Of FOIA and folly

Every public institution runs into the digital age dilemma: what should we archive and what are we required to archive?

One solid rule of thumb is making sure you can produce documents if asked that pertain to your business activity.  And doing that on Gmail to avoid the state's servers . . . . well, that is proven to not stand up in court.

Two recent FOIA-related articles via PRSA's daily email bring this balancing act into focus.  The first details the SNAFU by the U.S. Navy in sending its strategy memo of how to cut down on a FOIA request to the requester.

Ah, there are some old time favorites:  "encourage the sender to 'narrow the scope'" to avoid "fishing expeditions."  The tweet with the screen cap is here.

The other is this new product: Confide.  Marketing hype says it's "snapchat for the corner office."  In other words, a way to have erasable communications to avoid those pesky FOIA fishing expeditions.

As many have learned the hard way, Snapchat isn't as secure, and surely the same will be for Confide.