News item | 06-04-2023 | 2:59 pm
All business apps and text messages from ministers and senior officials must be preserved. This is the government’s response to various recommendations issued on the archiving policy of chat messages within the central government. The response sent to the House by Minister Bruins Slot of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, also on behalf of the State Secretaries of the Interior and Kingdom Relations and Education, Culture and Science, states what the government wants to do about the archiving of chat messages and better information management.
Minister Bruins Slot of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations: “By implementing the recommendations, the cabinet wants to achieve better management of information and archiving of chat messages.”
Chat messages
During a parliamentary debate on this subject, it was unclear whether the existing guidelines for the storage of chat messages complied with the Archives Act. That is why the government asked for some advice. Research by the Government Information and Heritage Inspectorate showed that the existing guidelines do not comply with the Archives Act on a number of points. In addition to the Public Access and Information Management Advisory Board, the parliamentary lawyer, the Government Commissioner for Information Management and the state archivist have also made recommendations.
Information better organized
The government believes it is crucial that the current situation in the field of information management and disclosure be improved significantly and as quickly as possible, as required by law. Based on the conclusions and recommendations, the government will therefore set to work to improve the information provided by the central government.
It is a huge job to properly archive the amount of information from the government, which has grown exponentially in recent decades due to emails, text messages and app messages. Because the information must be managed and made accessible, so that the government can guarantee the right to information for citizens. This calls for a two-track approach. Firstly, by realizing a digital working environment in which information is immediately and properly stored. A design for this is currently being considered.
Secondly, by taking a number of measures regarding chat messages in the short term. The policy in the ‘Save chat messages’ guide will be changed. In broad terms, this means that business chat messages from ministers and senior officials must be stored as a whole and as far as possible automatically. How long and whether a chat message should be kept depends on the position someone has. For example, chat messages from ministers are kept longer in government systems than from a top civil servant, and chat messages from other civil servants may simply remain on the telephone. An implementation plan will follow in the third quarter of 2023 and a pilot will be started. This is followed by a feasibility test for saving chat messages.
To prevent information loss, a temporary instruction came into effect on 4 October 2022 for the use, storage and security of SMS and chat messages by government officials. It stated that corporate chat messages should not be deleted until new chat policies are approved and implemented. This agreement will remain in effect until the new policy is implemented. With these adjustments, the cabinet wants to achieve better management of information and archiving of chat messages.