Information, data and records policies · 03
Records management and retention policy
Says how long each class of record is kept, where, and how it is destroyed.
Says how long each class of record is kept, where, and how it is destroyed.
Build a retention schedule by record class, each line carrying its legal basis: the Companies Act seven-year rule for company records, tax records under the Tax Administration Act, employment records under the BCEA and the Employment Equity Act, occupational health records, and the POPIA principle that personal information is not kept longer than necessary. Add the storage medium, the custodian, the destruction method and the destruction certificate, and a litigation hold that suspends destruction.
POPIA pulls in the opposite direction from the instinct to keep everything, and both directions are enforceable, which is why each line needs its own legal basis rather than a single global period. And the litigation hold is the clause that saves the organisation: routine destruction of records after a dispute has become foreseeable is very hard to explain.
The law it sits under
What governs this instrument.
Section 24(3) of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 requires a company to keep its records, including minutes and resolutions, for seven years. Retention is not only a Companies Act question: POPIA section 14 requires records not to be retained longer than necessary for the purpose, so a retention schedule has to carry both a minimum and a maximum, with the legal basis for each line.
Related pages, tools and documents
Where this instrument sits in the wider set, and the engagement that produces it.
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