8: Transparency
Document the processes and activities of the organization’s recordkeeping program in an understandable manner and available
to all personnel and appropriate interested parties.
Other Information:
Many parties have a legitimate interest in understanding the processes that govern the management of a recordkeeping program
and the activities undertaken within it. In addition to the organization itself and its personnel, those parties include but
are not limited to government authorities, auditors and investigators, litigants, and, for some organizations, the general
public. It is in the best interest of every organization, and of society in general, that all parties clearly understand:
The organization conducts its activities in a lawful and appropriate manner. The recordkeeping system accurately and completely
records the activities of the organization. The recordkeeping system is itself structured in a lawful and appropriate manner.
Activities conducted to implement the recordkeeping program are conducted in a lawful and appropriate manner. The clearest
and most durable evidence of these things are records. In the case of a recordkeeping program, those records include recordkeeping
policies and procedures and transactional records of the activities undertaken during the course of the recordkeeping program.
To ensure that interested parties will have confidence in them, records documenting the recordkeeping program must themselves
adhere to the fundamentals of records management. They should: Document the principles and processes that govern the program
Accurately and completely record the activities undertaken to implement the program Be written or recorded in a manner
that clearly sets forth the information recorded Be readily available to legitimately interested parties The information
recorded in these records and the extent to which they are available to interested parties will vary depending upon the circumstances
of the organization. An organization that is subject to open records laws may need to make all records available to any person
upon request. Other organizations may have a legitimate need to protect confidential or proprietary information, and they
may therefore reasonably put in place procedures designed to control access to information. Complex and highly regulated recordkeeping
systems may require extensive records documenting them. Simple systems may require only a few. In each case, however, the
rationales and outcomes should be clear to legitimately interested parties. Every organization must therefore create and manage
the records documenting its recordkeeping program to ensure that the structure, processes, and activities of the program are
apparent and understandable to legitimately interested parties and that the records documenting the program and its activities
are reasonably available to them.
Objective(s):
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