Originally published NARA sees ‘encouraging’ progress toward fully electronic records on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/08/nara-sees-encouraging-progress-toward-fully-electronic-records/ at Federal News Network
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Most federal agencies are managing most of their records in electronic formats, while the National Archives and Records Administration looks to get a handle on the future of digital recordkeeping.
William Fischer, acting chief records officer of the United States, provided a preview of NARA’s annual report on federal agency records management at the 930gov conference hosted by the Digital Government Institute in Washington on Thursday.
“This is a benchmark year, because it points us to the progress that agencies have made across the government in meeting the goals of the transition to electronic records directives,” Fischer said.
He said 71% of federal agencies reported meeting the July 2024 deadline for managing their permanent records in an electronic format. And of the remaining agencies who said they didn’t meet the deadline, roughly half sought an exception to continue managing some of their permanent records in an analog format, Fischer said.
Those numbers come with a caveat, however, as noted by Fischer: they are self-reported. And in their annual responses to NARA, agencies were asked whether they met the goal to manage their records in electronic format “to the fullest extent possible” before last year’s deadline.
The Department of Homeland Security, for instance, responded ‘Yes’ to that question, while acknowledging some DHS components continue to manage paper records.
“These components are currently in varied phases of their goal to become fully electronic and were granted extensions by NARA,” DHS wrote in its response. The department aims to be fully complaint by fiscal 2026, it added.
Agencies, however, have made significant progress in largely transitioning away from paper and other types of analog records. Agencies transferred nearly 1 million cubic feet of analog records to NARA prior to last July’s deadline.
“I take this is very encouraging news that the government writ large has made extraordinary progress over the last decade, but especially over the last five to seven years, in terms of making this transition to electronic records, especially in the case of their permanent electronic records,” Fischer said.
In addition to ditching paper records, NARA and agencies are also confronting how to manage a vast array of digital records. Records management has become more complex as agency chief records officers confront an ever-expanding deluge of emails, chat messages, text files and other digital records.
More than a decade ago, NARA approved a “Capstone” policy that allows federal agencies to automatically archive the emails of senior employees in line with records retention requirements. Several years ago, NARA began expanding the Capstone policy to other types of electronic messages.
Fischer said 71% of agencies reported using the Capstone approach for email last year, while 55% said they used it for other types of messages.
“We have to dig into that 55% a little bit, but this is what agencies are reporting” Fischer said.
And Fischer said 75% of agencies reported managing and preserving email “with limited end user input.”
“From the standpoint of making this easier for the user and ensuring that records management is taking place on the back side of this, I think it’s very encouraging that 75% are reporting they’re doing this with very limited end user input,” he said.
Meanwhile, NARA this week issued a new guide for managing federal records that better accounts for electronic recordkeeping. Fischer highlighted new instructions around the use of “machine-implementable disposition” instructions.
“This was a long time effort, and I think one of the hallmarks of this new guide to have the machine implementable disposition instructions guide embedded in this so that agencies can start developing these automated disposition instructions to help ensure the disposition is taking place in the background with new systems,” Fischer said.
Fischer didn’t address the ongoing reorganization and planned cuts at the National Archives. But he said the transition to electronic recordkeeping remains a top priority and goes beyond NARA’s interest in the preservation of digital records.
“It’s also about better business practices, delivering better solutions to citizens, reducing costs through digitization,” Fischer said. “And these goals remain important to NARA.”
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Originally published NARA sees ‘encouraging’ progress toward fully electronic records on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/it-modernization/2025/08/nara-sees-encouraging-progress-toward-fully-electronic-records/ at Federal News Network
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