Electronic filing

The filing is the action to put in file, to file. Employee especially at the origin for the only electronic documents, like a synonym of Storage or Safeguard, it tends more and more to being used for all the documents, whatever are nature and the support, and replacing Conservation.

The filing of electronic contents is the whole of the actions, tools and methods implemented to join together, identify, select, classify and preserve electronic contents, on a made safe support, with an aim of exploiting them and of making them available in time, that it is as proof (in the event of legal requirements in particular or of litigations) or on a purely informative basis. The filed contents are regarded as solidified and cannot thus be modified. The archival life is function of the value of the contents and generally relates to means or long run. The conservation is the whole of the means implemented to even store, make safe, perennialize, restore, trace, transfer to destroy, the electronic contents filed.

It is advisable to dissociate filing and the conservation well:

- storage, which is connected with the actions, tools and methods making it possible to store contents electronic and being used as a basis for the secondary treatment of the contents;

- safeguard, which can be defined as being the whole of the actions, tools and methods intended to duplicate electronic contents of origin with a sedentary aim to avoid their loss in the event of dysfunction of the device on which they are recorded (in the case of recovery plans of activity or continuity of activity - PRA/PCA). The safeguarded contents are not regarded as not solidified and can thus be modified or replaced. The duration of the safeguard is function of its periodicity and generally relates to short term.

Archival files in data processing

This term is used in Informatique for the meeting in only one file many other files. This archival file lends itself to the update, storage or the transfer by network.

Filing can be simple (format tar, for example), or combined with compaction (tar.gz, tar.bz2, zip, rar, ace etc)

For a data-processing file of long life, it is important to be ensured as much as possible of independence of information compared to its format : for example for data filed for 20 years, it is preferable to store information in the form of text, rather than in a native format for which the associated program is likely not to be available more, or whose operating system will not be operational any more.

Electronic filing in France

Facets of filing

The electronic filing of documents must be under consideration under several angles :

It makes it possible to preserve a trace of operations and contracts carried out in the past. It must then follow certain procedures, framed by the law and the Norme S, so that the files can have value of Preuve.
It can be used to capitalize an scientific experiment and technique, for a future re-use of results (see OAIS).
It can attack the respect of the private life especially if it preserves too a long time data in personal matter, when these data are badly protected from the external intrusions. It is for this reason that intervenes the National Commission of data processing and freedoms (CNIL) and the data-processing Loi and freedoms.

Legislation relating to filing

N.B. Information which follows does not completely apply to the Public records electronic. Indeed, the code of the inheritance subjects them to obligations of conservation and payment in a service of public records. The destruction of public records in some form which they present without authorization of the administration of the files is an offense.

the law of March 13rd, 2000 contains several relative tendencies with legal filing of documents, in particular in electronic form. It modifies the Civil code French : article 1316-1 () admits the writing in electronic form as proof as well as the writing on paper medium provided that it is preserved under conditions likely to guarantee the integrity of it. Article 1348 () specifies what is a copy being taken.

the Code of the consommation : the article L134-2 (version in force), introduced by the law for confidence into the digital economy in June 2004, imposes the filing of a writing proving the existence of any contract drawn up in electronic and bearing form on a sum higher than a certain limit. This limit was fixed at 120 euros by the decree n°2005-137 of February 16th, 2005. This provision, which relates to in particular Internet sites of e-business, aims at facilitating the payment of the litigations. The legal duration of filing is 10 years, which corresponds to the time of Prescription in the traditional contracts.

the general Code of the impôts : articles 289 and following () fix the rules relating to the conservation of the electronic invoices.

Standards of use

In addition, of the nonobligatory standards provide to the organizations a procedure to follow to ensure the filing of its documents :

the standard NF Z 42-013, published in 1999, is most known in France. It specifies technical and organisational procedures making it possible to guarantee the integrity of the documents during their recording, of their storage and their restitution. Standard NF Z 42-013 was published in one time when the electronic writing could constitute only one beginning of Preuve and not a of the same proof level than the writing in form paper (Article 1316-1 of the Civil code).
the standard NF Z 43-400, approved the August 20th 2005, which treats COM/COLD.

Lastly, it is necessary to announce OAIS (Open File System Information), conceptual model intended for management, the filing and the long safeguarding of numerical Documents. Model OAIS corresponds to the standard ISO 14721:2003 (Systems of transfer of information and space data - open System of filing of information - Model of reference).

Data-processing law and Freedoms and “right with the lapse of memory”

The CNIL recommends to the companies to adopt a policy of filing differentiated according to nature from the preserved data, in order to reconcile the needs for exploitation of the data with the respect of the private life and the “right to the lapse of memory” founded by the data-processing Loi and freedoms. The CNIL with this intention takes again the three categories of files defined by the Archivistique :

the current files , for example relative data with a customer within the framework of a contract,
the intermediate files , which are of administrative interest for the services concernés : their shelf life is fixed by the applicable rules of regulation.
the final files , which have a strictly historical interest, scientific or statistique : they can be preserved indefinitely.

The current and intermediate files should be preserved only for the period necessary to their treatment, duration specified at the time of the declaration of the file with the CNIL. This is true in particular data containing of the elements of identification of the people (articles 6 and 24 of the law of the modified January 6th, 1978 in August 2004). The manager of these data must thus envisage the destruction in the long term these files.

The intermediate files have vocation to be used only by certain services, for example by the legal department. A security management of access must ensure that only authorized people have access to these data (article 34).

In the Electronic administration

The program ADELE of Electronic administration employs the standard OAIS of filing electronic using of the Métadonnée S.

See too

Files
Archivistique
Moreq
OAIS
Management of the documents of file
List of ISO standards by fields
GED
GEIDE

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