5 FAM 430
Records Creation
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
(Office of Origin: A/GIS/IPS)
5 FAM 431 GENERAL
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. Records created or received by Department personnel are a byproduct of the Department’s work that provide official historical evidence of major U.S. foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activities.
b. All Department personnel must:
(1) Provide evidence of their work when conducting U.S. Government business that is complete and accurate to the extent required to document the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the Department;
(2) Use Department-approved systems, platforms, and applications to the fullest extent possible to conduct Department business;
(3) Accurately mark the classification and sensitivity of Department information to ensure records are properly protected and enhance search capabilities; and
(4) Follow bureau or post internal procedures for naming conventions and using filing structure(s) to ensure records are saved appropriately and can be located when needed.
c. The creation of records is essential to ensure important policies, decisions, and operations of the Department are adequately recorded:
(1) Any information created for Department use and delivered to, or falling under the legal control of the Department, including records created by contactors performing work for, or on behalf of the Department, are records and must be managed in accordance with Federal law, Department policy and the appropriate records disposition schedule; and
(2) Bureau offices and post sections must specify in contracts, the government’s ownership of records and the delivery to the government of all records necessary for the adequate and proper documentation of contractor-operated agency activities and programs in accordance with the requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Department of State Acquisition Regulation (DOSAR).
d. The use of non-Department/official accounts, applications, or platforms, including personal email accounts or non-Government messaging applications should never be the primary means of conducting Department business. (See 5 FAM 434 for guidance on the use of non-government accounts.)
e. The content of information and the context in which it is created determines whether the information meets the definition of a record. Therefore, the recording of activities of officials of the Department should be complete to the extent necessary to:
(1) Identify the persons, organizations, places, and topics deliberated by Department personnel or representatives;
(2) Facilitate the making of decisions and policies and the taking of action by the incumbents and their successors in office;
(3) Fulfill the requirements of Federal statutes;
(4) Make possible a proper scrutiny by Congress and other duly authorized agencies of the U.S. Government of the manner in which the functions of the Department have discharged;
(5) Protect the financial, legal and other rights of the U.S. Government and of the persons directly affected by the actions of the Department; and
(6) Provide appropriate documentary materials for research and other historical purposes.
f. The standard for determining whether electronic information meets the definition of a “record” under the Federal Records Act is the same standard that applies to all other types of Department records regardless of whether it was created, transmitted, or stored on:
(1) Email;
(2) Government-approved systems and platforms (Including Cloud Services);
(3) Government-issued devices;
(4) Websites;
(5) SharePoint sites;
(6) Shared drives;
(7) Video and audio recordings;
(8) Photographs;
(9) Electronic messaging applications;
(10) Social media sites; and
(11) Personal devices.
5 FAM 432 Department’s Central Email Archive
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. All emails and attachments that are created or received to conduct Department business, are Federal records.
b. Effective January 1, 2017, the Department’s central email system automatically captures, manages, and preserves all emails sent and received on OpenNet and ClassNet into a central archive. Consequently, it is no longer required to print and file such emails.
c. The Department follows the General Records Schedule (GRS) 6.1: Email Managed under a Capstone Approach, which stipulates that:
(1) Capstone officials are agency personnel occupying senior positions, typically at the Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) or DAS-equivalent level and above domestically, and ambassadors, deputy chiefs of mission (DCMs) and principal officers overseas, who are notified in writing of their designation:
(a) Emails of capstone officials are retained by the Department for 25 years after the end of tenure and then transferred to NARA;
(b) Emails of capstone officials sent or received prior to December 31, 2016, must be exported electronically and retired to A/GIS/IPS/RA prior to the official’s end-of-tenure; and
(c) The Agency Records Officer must be notified if personnel are in an acting capacity for a capstone official for longer than 60 days to ensure their position is reflected as such in the email system;
(2) Non-capstone officials are all other Department email account users. Their emails will be retained for seven years from the date sent or received and then automatically deleted;
(3) It remains a non-capstone official's obligation and responsibility to ensure emails sent and received prior to December 31, 2016, are preserved pursuant to the appropriate records disposition schedule;
(4) Emails and attachments of non-capstone officials must be preserved outside of an official’s email account pursuant to the Department’s records disposition schedules if:
(a) The official is departing from a specific office and/or the Department; or
(b) The official has emails that are seven years old that require retention beyond seven years; and/or
(c) In either case, the emails at issue should be saved in an accessible electronic format outside of the official’s email account in a location that is accessible to the office to which the records belong, such as the relevant office’s shared drive files or folder, or appropriately retired if required by the relevant records disposition schedule.
5 FAM 433 Using Email Systems Outside of the OpenNet and ClassNet State.gov Domains (Central Email System)
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. All email systems outside of the OpenNet and ClassNet State.gov domains (Central Email System) must be managed under the Capstone Approach (General Records Schedule 6.1: Email Managed under a Capstone Approach).
b. Executive directors and management officers must notify the Agency Records Officer via records@state.gov, of active or proposed custom email systems that augment the Department’s Centralized Email System.
c. Custom email systems must comply with the system requirements in 5 FAM 443.
5 FAM 434 Personal Email Accounts
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. All Department personnel with an official State Department email account are discouraged from using a personal email account(s) (e.g., Gmail, AOL, Hotmail, contracting company accounts, etc.) to conduct U.S. Government business.
b. Convenience is not an appropriate reason to utilize a personal email account in lieu of an official email account.
c. Personal email accounts are only to be used to conduct official business in very limited circumstances. Examples include but are not limited to:
(1) Temporary system outages; or
(2) Times when access to Department systems is limited or restricted.
d. When it becomes necessary to use a personal account, an individual must:
(1) Include his or her official U.S. Government email account (e.g., state.gov) on the TO, CC, or BCC line during the original creation, transmission, or reply;
(2) If the sender fails to include his or her official U.S. Government email account during the original creation or transmission, forward a complete version of work-related email (including any attachments) to his or her official U.S. Government email account no later than 20 calendar days after the original creation or transmission;
(3) For work-related emails older than 20 days, immediately forward a complete version (including any attachments) to his or her official email account; and
(4) Delete all work-related emails from the personal account after its successful transmittal to a government email account (e.g., state.gov) when no longer needed for continuity or reference.
5 FAM 435 Non-Government Electronic Messaging Applications and Platforms
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. All Department personnel are generally prohibited from conducting official Department business on any electronic messaging (eMessaging) application that does not allow communications to be archived by, for example, use of an “export” feature for messages or chains of messages or copying and pasting text onto a state.gov email.
b. If there is no alternative source and the use of such application or platform is critical to carrying out the Department’s mission, contact the Department’s records office at records@state.gov immediately.
c. When conducting Department business, the use of non-official eMessaging account, application or platform (with archive and/or export functionality) is permitted under the following circumstances:
(1) The application or platform is the only means of communication our partner is willing to use or the primary means that a group of partners is using (e.g., during a negotiation); or
(2) Engagement is greatly enhanced by using such means of communication to carry out the Department’s mission, such as the following activities:
(a) Performing consular engagement with citizen liaison volunteers (CLVs), local hospitals, immigration contacts, and other specialized constituencies;
(b) Promoting upcoming events, conducting public engagements, and other public affairs and public diplomacy matters;
(c) Communicating during emergency, contingency, and continuity events (e.g., evacuations, natural disasters, staff accountability, etc.); or
(d) Coordinating routine logistics or operations.
d. Regardless of the circumstances, when non-Government eMessaging applications and platforms are used to conduct Department business, each individual Department user included in the group message must capture the records on official Department systems as follows:
(1) Records must be copied or forwarded from the non-Government application or platform to the individual’s own state.gov account at the time of transmission or within 20 calendar days of creation or receipt;
(2) After successfully forwarding or copying, delete the message from the non-government messaging application when no longer needed for continuity or reference; and/or
(3) For platform-specific directions, use the following guidance document: Records Management Guidance for eMessaging.
e. Department personnel are not required to forward messages that relate to routine logistical activities that do not provide evidence of substantive Department business and/or whose value to the Department is minimal and of a particularly short-term nature. These are considered transitory records and may be deleted from the messaging application no later than 20 days after the original transmission.
f. NOFORN information may not be transmitted on non-government accounts, applications, or platforms.
(1) NOFORN is a type of SBU information that warrants a degree of protection greater than that of standard SBU information; and/or
(2) Therefore, employees must process and transmit SBU/NOFORN information only on a system authorized by the Department for classified information transmission, storage, and processing. (See 12 FAM 545 for more information on NOFORN.)
5 FAM 436 Using Video Conferencing Tools and Platforms
(CT:IM-289; 09-02-2022)
a. Video conferencing tools and platforms (e.g., Microsoft Teams, Adobe Connect, WebEx, Google Meet, etc.) allow Department personnel to communicate remotely with one another to conduct work meetings, conferences, seminars, training sessions, and other activities.
b. Records created using any of the approved conferencing tools must follow the same retention requirements as records created elsewhere and may be subject to access requests under Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or a litigation hold.
5 FAM 437 Through 439 UNASSIGNED