GAO finds holes in e-mail habits.

According to a report released in April by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), large gaps exist in key agencies' e-mail management and storage policies.

"Preliminary results of GAO's review of e-mail records management at four agencies show that not all are meeting the challenges posed by e-mail records," said the report, which examined the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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While the four agencies' e-mail records management policies generally addressed regulatory requirements, these requirements were not always met by the 15 senior officials whose e-mail practices were reviewed for the report. Each of the four agencies generally followed a print-and-file process to preserve e-mail records in paper-based recordkeeping systems, but for about half of the senior officials, e-mail records were not being appropriately identified and preserved in such systems, the GAO found. Instead, e-mail messages were being retained in e-mail systems that lacked recordkeeping capabilities.

The government's e-mail practices have been scrutinized since the controversial firing of eight U.S. attorneys last year, when White House officials were criticized for their handling and alleged deletion of e-mails. A judge ordered the White House to keep backup copies of millions of e-mails that were allegedly deleted, and Congress is investigating the executive branch's e-mail practices.

The GAO report, which is part of testimony to the House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, reveals that agencies typically print out e-mails and store them in physical files, despite the availability of e-discovery technologies. GAO officials said printing copies of e-mails can lead to agencies storing multiple copies of the same message, both in paper and electronic format, resulting in unnecessary data storage.

"Officials and their responsible staff had not always received training in the recordkeeping requirements for e-mail records," wrote Linda Koontz, the GAO's director of information management issues. "If recordkeeping requirements are not followed, agencies cannot be assured that records, including information that is essential to protecting the rights of individuals and the federal government, is [sic] being adequately identified and preserved."

The GAO found that the EPA and the FTC did not train their staff on managing and preserving e-mails sent from nongovernmental e-mail systems, such as commercial, web-based e-mail systems. Also, the DHS' e-mail policies did not specify that draft documents circulated via e-mail may be federal records.

GAO found that many of the 15 senior government officials (yet unnamed) kept every e-mail in their systems. "Several of these officials had thousands or even tens of thousands in their e-mail message accounts," wrote Koontz. "By keeping every message, they were potentially increasing the time and effort that would be needed to search through and review all the saved messages in response to a Freedom of Information Act [request]."

The National Archives and Records Administration is responsible for overseeing federal records management, including e-mail management, but GAO officials concluded that agencies do not always comply with its guidance.