US House of Reps Introduces Legislation Requiring Companies to Perform Disposition

Principal Product Marketing Manager, Information Governance

Whenever my Product Manager or I speak at an event, we always ask attendees if they have disposition policies in place.  Happily, many of them do.  Then we ask them if they actually perform that disposition.  This usually leads to nervous chuckles or rolling of eyes by frustrated records managers. While we know we are supposed to dispose of content, many organizations are nervous to actually do so.

Keeping this in mind, I happened upon an article in NextGov that I believe underlines just how crucial it is to have active retention and disposition policies.  The article focuses on draft legislation in the US House of Representatives designed to protect consumer information. It quotes the draft legislation as requiring companies to “protect consumers by requiring reasonable security policies and procedures to protect data containing personal information, and to provide for nationwide notice in the event of a security breach.”  The article goes on to state that the bill would require companies to perform disposition of old or unnecessary data.  Additionally,