Archiving Text Messages

Most business people in different sectors use SMS messaging as a mission critical tool as well as a customer service medium. However, before you leverage this format, you need to make sure that you fully understand the premises of an old regulation that regulates the way business people communicate with their customers. It is referred to as the Telephone Consumer Protocol Act, or TCPA. TCPA is a law that was enacted way back in 1991 to regulate the use of automatic telephone dialing systems, telephone marketing calls and artificial or pre-recorded voice messages. It aims to protect consumers by making sure that intrusive business practices and unwanted marketing messages by companies because of the rise of automatic telephone dialing systems are avoided. TCPA allows people to file lawsuits and collect damages for getting unsolicited telemarketing calls, pre-recorded calls, faxes as well as auto-dialed calls. Because of relentless advancements in technology, new rules in t

Government officials are no longer ignoring the fact that a lot of people use personal mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones for work-related discussions.   Formerly unconventional means are being used by people to discuss business these days. It is not unusual for a city attorney to send an SMS message to their colleague instead of writing them an email or using an official city phone to do so. The messages that are being send using formerly unconventional means are increasingly being legally recognized as matters of public record, meaning that FOIA archiving in a proper manner is needed. In early 2011, the office of the Attorney General of Texas made a ruling that required text messages as well as emails that are sent between public officials to be considered public information subject to the Texas Public Information Act. Before this ruling was made, a city in Texas had received a request that required SMS messages and emails that are sent between the city’s commi

If you are a company owner and have allowed your employees to use WhatsApp at work, it is imperative that you do everything you can to stay compliant. The compliance risks that this app presents to businesses that cannot manage and supervise its use are significant. The good news is that there are tools and strategies that you can use to stay compliant when you are using WhatsApp for business purposes. If this app is used properly, it can ultimately help your employees become more productive in their day to day role in your company. One of the things you could do in order to ensure WhatsApp compliant recording in your business is identify the problems and risks of using this app. Even though it provides a lot benefits, WhatsApp is a consumer-grade app. It uses end to end encryption that makes it difficult to monitor and supervise anyone even by the people who work in the information technology department. Its encryption capabilities can result into a lack of visibility that

Is public records archiving of any benefit to my business? This is a question that may be asking yourself right now if you are a company owner. Archiving is definitely of great importance for information management in your business and can give your company greater control over information processes if it is done right. As your business continues to grow and expand, you will create more data – that you will need to manage and monitor meticulously for it to be used properly. If you do not put an archiving system in place, keeping tabs on this data can prove problematic. There are quite a number of benefits of public records archiving for growing businesses, one of them being prevention of data loss. Information that is not archived on a central, secure repository stands a higher risk of being lost forever. Although the chances of an employee accidentally misplacing or deleting a file are slim, it can still happen. Data recovery experts may be able to retrieve this information