Electronic Official Records
Per Section
“Title 4. Executive Branch, Subtitle D.
History, Culture, and Education, Subchapter A, Texas State Library
and Archives Commission”. Electronic Official Records:
- Any state record may be created or stored electronically in accordance with standards and procedures adopted as administrative rules of the commission.
- Certified output from electronically digitized images or other electronic data compilations created and stored in accordance with the rules of the commission shall be accepted as original state records by any court or administrative agency of this state unless barred by a federal law, regulation, or rule of court.
- Certified output from electronically digitized images or other data compilations created before September 1, 1997, in accordance with any applicable prior law shall be accepted as original state records or, in the absence of an applicable prior law, at the discretion of the court or administrative agency.
Official records may be created and maintained electronically
without ever being produced in hard copy. It is important to determine
the final content of the official electronic record and to institute procedures
to dispose of working copies, drafts, and duplicates when the final official record
is complete. Because of the ease with which electronic records can
be copied and shared, the presence of convenience copies represents
a vulnerability to the agency.
Official records that are kept electronically are to be retained
for the required retention period in a secure manner that prevents the alteration
of the record in its original form with supporting metadata.