Imagine missing out on critical government discussions simply because they vanished into the digital ether. This is the reality in Michigan, where vital communications have been disappearing due to automatic deletions.
Michigan’s policy of erasing Microsoft Teams chats after 30 days has raised eyebrows, particularly as these discussions vanish before they can be accessed under the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). While emails enjoy a seven-year retention period, Teams messages are not afforded the same longevity, resulting in inaccessible records of potentially important conversations.
State officials attribute the deletion policy to storage constraints rather than a deliberate effort to obscure government communications. Laura Wotruba, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget, emphasizes that the policy helps in managing network efficiency. She asserts, “These timeframes are not record retention periods, they are about storage only.”
Nonetheless, this practice has its critics. Derk Wilcox from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy notes that the policy “certainly violates the spirit of transparency” inherent in open records laws.
Despite these deletions, Michigan law does not define mandatory retention periods for such digital communications. The state’s Management and Budget Act allows officials to determine these durations, which some experts, like David Cuillier from the University of Florida, find perplexing. Cuillier remarks, “It is weird to have emails be one time length, then Teams messages be a lot shorter.”
While Michigan stands firm on its deletion policy, other jurisdictions have opted for different approaches. The federal government, for instance, has started treating Teams messages akin to emails, ensuring their availability to the public. Similarly, Washington state has temporarily halted automatic deletions of Teams messages, prompted by a settlement over destroyed records.
The debate over digital communication retention is ongoing, with open government advocates pushing for policies that safeguard these records. As technology evolves, so too must the strategies to preserve transparency in government dealings.
For more details on Michigan’s open records laws, visit the Michigan Legislature’s website.
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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
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