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Retention Periods for Records

The retention period is a binding definition of the duration (in years) which analog and electronic records must be retained by the administration, as access may be required for processing or administrative purposes or may become necessary for legal or other reasons. Retention periods are thus an important tool to reflect the value of the records for administrative purposes.

Unless legal and administrative provisions otherwise specify, the relevant qualified organizational unit is responsible for defining the retention period.

Various factors are considered in this process, particularly:

  • processing interest
  • economic efficiency.

Identifying practical administrative or legal reasons for retention (value of the records for the fulfillment of the tasks of an organizational unit as well as its obligation to provide evidence) can be helpful when determining the retention period. Decisions regarding an obligation to save records should be based on the importance of the records for an individual's own work (e.g., facilitating the processing of similar cases), safeguarding of the rights and obligations of an individual's own authority (e.g., vis-à-vis third parties, proof of responsibilities) and other authorities, and the type of documents.

The retention period always begins after the end of the year in which the last document of a submission procedure was added to the files (zdA-Verfügung), i.e. uniformly on 1 January of the calendar year following the end of processing. If processing is resumed, the time limit is interrupted and starts anew at the end of the year of final processing. As a rule, the retention period should not exceed 30 years.

 

The retention period also serves to ensure records are only archived as long as necessary the decision for their disposition (in accordance with Section 5 Berlin Archival Law) is taken as early as possible. This allows the disposition process to be as simple as possible. For the administration, the determination of the retention period is also a streamlining measure, as retention requires physical or digital storage space and additional costs.


Source: Gerhard Rudolph, Aufbewahrungspflichten in Betrieb und Verwaltung. Aufbewahrungspflichtige Unterlagen. Aufbewahrungsfristen. Aufbewahrungsformen, 8th edition, Hannover 2001

Disposition pursuant to Section 5 Berlin Archival Law

Section 5: Disposition and submission of records

(1) All authorities, courts and other agencies of the State of Berlin are required to dispose of and offer all records for archiving in unmodified form which are no longer required for the performance of tasks, as a rule no later than 30 years after their creation, unless otherwise stipulated by legal provisions. Creation refers to the time of completion of a document or the last processing of the content of a document. The obligation pursuant to sentence 1 also applies to those records of formerly public bodies or bodies of equivalent status that were created prior to the body’s transition to a legal form under private law. Legal entities under private law that do not participate in economic competition and more than half of whose shares or votes are held by the State of Berlin shall also be deemed to be public bodies within the meaning of sentence 1. This obligation also applies to records containing personal data. Section 17 (4) of the Berlin Data Protection Act shall remain unaffected.

(2) Insofar as uniform documents accumulating in large numbers are of archival value, the type and scope of the archival property to be transferred to the Landesarchiv Berlin are to be determined by agreement between the submitting agency and the Landesarchiv Berlin.

(3) In the case of electronic documents, primary and metadata formats as well as the mode of transmission are to be agreed upon in advance.

(4) Records whose disclosure would violate the privacy of correspondence, mail, or telecommunications are exempt from the obligation to submit records for archiving.

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