Retention schedule

A retention schedule assigns record classes a retention period and a disposition action, usually from a stated trigger such as contract end or case closure. It translates legal, contractual, and operational obligations into a controlled rule for keeping or disposing of records. The schedule must define which copies and derivatives it covers. A long retention period does not by itself authorize unrestricted access, and an expired period does not always permit immediate deletion if a hold applies.

In practice, each class needs an owner, trigger, duration, exception process, and evidence that disposition occurred or was suspended. Source copies, extracted values, logs, backups, and exports may have different obligations. A change in classification or law may require review of the schedule, while a legal hold can pause normal disposal for specific material. The policy should avoid vague phrases such as 'keep as needed' that cannot be tested.

For a defensible value, retention governs whether its supporting record remains available when a decision is challenged later. Preserving everything forever can violate obligations and increase exposure; deleting the evidence too early can make a past conclusion impossible to examine. Chain of custody and audit trails document handling during the retention period. Point-in-time reproducibility depends on retaining the material required to reconstruct a decision for as long as the applicable policy demands.

A schedule is a table: record class, trigger event for the retention period, period, legal or business basis, disposal action, owner. The trigger matters as much as the period. Seven years from creation, seven years from contract end and seven years from last transaction are different rules. Disposal must be real: deleting from the primary database while leaving copies in backups, indexes, exports and retained evidence does not meet the schedule. NIST's Guidelines for Media Sanitization address how to make data unrecoverable when storage is retired, and logs of disposal are evidence that the schedule was followed.

The schedule also applies to evidence: a retained source copy kept to support a decision is a record with its own class and period, often tied to the life of the decision it supports. For personal data in such copies, the period should be justified by the purpose. Test the schedule by sampling records past their disposal date and finding out why they still exist, and by sampling disposed records and confirming that every copy is gone. The article on preserving evidence when a cited source changes addresses what to keep and for how long.

Ask for the schedule and its legal bases. Pick a record class and trace what happens at the end of its period. Look for copies in backups, exports and indexes. Ask how holds are issued, tracked and released. Sample records past their date. Ask how disposal is logged.