Since many state, university, community college, and local government employees have already transitioned to teleworking or are in the process of doing so for the foreseeable future, we’d like to present some basic tips for how to manage public records when you work from home.
First, we want to emphasize that you should follow your agency’s internal policies and procedures on teleworking. The advice below does not contravene any of those internal procedures. Rather, it should help you ensure that your activity complies with G.S. 132 and best practices for records management.
Secondly, it’s important to note that, under G.S. 132, all records created in the course of government business are public records. Where a government employee creates the record (at home or at work) and on what device (personal or government-issued) is immaterial. For example, if your agency holds a virtual meeting and then puts minutes for that meeting onto a shared drive, those minutes are public record even if they were typed on an employee’s personal computer. In order to keep your work and personal records separate, we encourage you to exclusively use your work accounts for any e-mail or instant messaging relating to government business. To all extent possible, please refrain from using your personal email, social media, and other messaging accounts when creating, editing, or reviewing public records. If you have to use a personal account when working on a public record, you should remember that you’re still responsible for the maintenance of that record and that it remains open for access through a public records request.
In terms of specific advice, teleworking presents its own unique challenges because of the necessity of using Cloud-based storage and sharing systems. We encourage you to examine our Best Practices for Cloud Computing for Records Management document that may prove useful to your agency. At the state level, many agencies utilize Microsoft OneDrive as their Cloud storage and access portal of choice. We therefore have a Best Practices document specifically written to address concerns of public records management in One Drive. If you do not use OneDrive, we encourage you to read the more general Best Practices document for tips regardless of your chosen platform.
We also acknowledge that most employees are going to conduct nearly all of their communications through e-mail and other virtual tools. We have compiled a series of documents on our best practices for records management in e-mail, texting, and social media.
We understand that records management isn’t at the forefront of your minds right now as we all transition to continuing our governmental roles in new ways. Yet now more than ever it’s important that all of us as public records custodians ensure that our operations remain transparent and that citizens will have access to their records now and in the months and years to come. Please know that government records analysts are happy to answer any questions that you may have on public records. Thank you so much for all that you’re doing across North Carolina.
The G.S. 132 Files 