Future Proof – Protecting our digital future

Call for any research or any occurrence of machine learning technologies being used in records management within the State of New South Wales or beyond. This could be in the area of digital classification, appraisal or disposal from either an “off the shelf product” or any “in house development” being used. Machine learning is the […]

Last week we had our first Records Managers Forum for the year and we heard very interesting and informative stories from three NSW public offices. State Archives and Records NSW uses the Forum to engage with public offices and to provide an opportunity for other NSW public sector organisations to share information about key initiatives […]

We’ve had quite a few enquiries on information systems – from systems upgrades to migration, and also risks around decommissioning of legacy systems. Q1. Why do we need to keep on migrating metadata of old records that have been destroyed or missing? A: There is a need to retain the metadata of old records, regardless […]

Information Flow within organisations Information flows within an organisation, either formally or informally. The free flow of facts, ideas, data and opinions is constant and the lifeblood of any organisation. Information flows can also result in records being created with all the inherent issues associated with information integrity, accessibility, security and preservation.

In the same week, the Productivity Commission released a draft report on Data Availability and Use and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet released Australia’s first Open Government National Action Plan for feedback. The release of these drafts is a timely reminder to reflect on our data management practices and how we are […]

We revisited digital disposal at our recent Digital Implementers Group meeting. We were interested in how things had progressed since the topic was last discussed. Were the main drivers for digital disposal still compelling? Were the main blockers still impassable? After an energetic discussion, we knew we faced familiar challenges, but also included are some […]

Much has been made of privacy concerns around the 2016 Australian census. Unfairly or not, much of the early discourse[1] was centred on the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ intention to retain name and address information for four years. Many commentators have shared their views on whether they trust the government on how they will use […]

FAQs:  Council Amalgamations – managing records and information through transition and administrative change This FAQ provides some advice around recent questions State Records has received in relation to Council amalgamations. What information do you need to consider? Information is an asset needed for the business of local government to continue; this is critical at any time […]

We have recently received a number of enquiries from organisations about the retention of credit card data. Specifically, these organisations want to know how to keep this data in a way that meets the requirements of the Payment Card Industry – Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), which was developed to encourage and enhance cardholder data security […]

We have been talking with a range of NSW public offices about their experiences in decommissioning systems. One of these organisations has a range of different business systems running on Windows 2003 servers, so has been involved in a number of decommissioning projects this year. Below they have very generously summarised and shared some of […]