Records Management​ Email Records

All e-mail messages are considered Government property, and, if requested for a legitimate Government purpose, must be provided to the requester. Employees' supervisors, NIH staff conducting official reviews or investigations, and the Office of Inspector General may request access to or copies of the e-mail messages. E-mail messages must also be provided to Congressional oversight committees if requested and are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Since most e-mail systems have back-up files that are retained for significant periods of time, e-mail messages and attachments are likely to be retrievable from a back-up file after they have been deleted from an individual's computer. The back-up files are subject to the same requests as the original messages. ​​

NIH has adopted the Capstone Approach for managing email. The Capstone Approach is a simplified approach to managing email. This method of email management allows NIH to designate the email accounts of high-level officials as permanent records, and the email accounts of all other staff as temporary. The Capstone Approach enables NIH to reduce the burden of email management on NIH staff, while meeting Federal and HHS recordkeeping requirements. For further Email Records Management guidance please visit: NIH Policy Manual Chapter 1743-1, Email Records Management​. The  National Archives NA-1005 document identifying NIH’s Capstone Officials is publicly available and located on NARA’s website.​​