Legal admissibility standard for electronic information is revised
2 February 2015
BSI, the business standards company has recently revised the standard which helps organizations manage the implementation and operation of electronic information management systems. BS 10008:2014 Evidential weight and legal admissibility of electronic information- Specification also offers guidance on the storage and transfer of information.
Information is an organizational asset that needs to be managed throughout its lifecycle. It is frequently required to be used in and outside of the organization for demonstrating compliance and/or dispute resolution. If the authenticity or integrity of the information cannot be trusted then conclusions based upon it could be discredited. Therefore BS 10008 has been developed to help users verify and authenticate their information to avoid the legal pitfalls of poor information storage. It addresses how information needs to be managed by an organization, in an information management system, to enable it to have strong evidential weight and be demonstrably trustworthy with regard to its authenticity and integrity, whenever it needs to be used during its lifecycle.
BS 10008 outlines the best way in which to transfer electronic information between systems and in migrating paper records to digital files. It also gives guidelines for managing the availability and accessibility of any records that could be required as legal evidence.
Anne Hayes, Head of Market for Governance & Risk at BSI said: “By conforming to BS 10008, evidential weight of electronic information managed by an organization can be maximized, by ensuring its trustworthiness and reliability. Additionally, since the standard follows the structure of ISO Management System Standards, it can be aligned to an organization’s existing management system standards such as ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 27001 (Information Security) or ISO 14001 (Environmental Management).”
BS 10008 was revised using the collaborative skills of information records management experts from a wide range of business sectors, from large corporations to companies offering scanning, certification and training services, and NHS Trusts.
Benefits of BS 10008?
- Maximizes the evidential weight which a court or other body may assign to presented information
- Allows better processes to be put in place for dealing with copyright, tracking and verification issues
- Covers how to migrate paper records to microform or digital format without compromising quality
- Saves on cost of paper storage and helps to improve an organization’s environmental credentials
- Outlines ways to authenticate encrypted information and electronic signatures – helping to align with existing information security policies
- Enables management of information over longer periods to be more straightforward, including migration during technology upgrades
- Allows organizations to reduce the risk of losing records – electronic information can be backed-up and protected more effectively than paper records at risk of physical damage
- Provides condidence to external inspectors (regulators or auditors) that the orgnization’s information and business practices are robust and reliable.
BS 10008 is applicable to organizations in all business sectors, and is relevant to Information Risk & Governance officers, records managers, information managers, IT managers, Chief Information Officers, consultancies, service providers, vendors of document/records management solutions/legal organizations.
