I should clarify (in light of the other contributions that have been
posted since) that ultimately, my policy decision for this organisation
was also influenced by two major factors I hadn't previously mentioned.
Firstly, that we have changed the mail server platform we operate, so
restoring the back-ups since the changeover is much easier than
restoring the older back-ups which would mean re-building the whole old
e-mail server.  And from the practical perspective, that we have
sub-contracted the hosting and maintenance of our e-mail servers to a
third party company who had not factored in the cost of conducting
time-consuming back-up searches into their maintenance charges.  The net
result being that they didn't have the time to do them, we didn't want
to pay extra money for them to do them, so we investigated whether there
was enough evidence from a legal perspective to justify doing away with
them, and we changed our policy accordingly.  As a knock-on effect, we
also decided to reduce the length of time we keep e-mail back-ups to 6
months from a year.

-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carter, Antoinette
(CCM)
Sent: 20 January 2005 12:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [data-protection] Back-up

Dear Caroline,

The last couple of times this "did the rounds" it was at my instigation,
so I can fill you in on the advice I gleaned at the time.  There is no
definitive advice available apart from the ICO's advice which, as Paul
Ticher rightly says, is very old and clearly not up to date.  Certainly,
the advice has not been up-dated post-Durrant.  There are people who
argue that the original advice still stands.  But there are others who
believe that back-ups (by their very nature) are non-searchable until
such time as you have restored them, and are therefore not a "structured
filing system", and this is ultimately the policy decision I have set
for our own organisation.  If, however, a DSAR specifically requests a
search of the back-ups because the search of the "live" systems has not
located a specific e-mail they know to have existed, then I will carry
out a backup search.  But I would not automatically conduct a search of
back-ups unless I felt that the circumstances of the case dictated it.
Hope that helps, 
Regards, Antoinette


-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of chd201
Sent: 20 January 2005 11:14
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] Back-up

I am sure this has been discussed on the list before (probably many
times) but
I can't locate any advice. Do we have to provide e-mail stored on backup
systems in response to an SAR? I believe that the system in place would
not be
easily searchable and therefore may be exempt.

Is there any guidance available on this?

Caroline

------------------------------
Caroline Dominey
Data Protection & Planning
[log in to unmask]
01392 263033
------------------------------

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