The way we store and transfer information has changed continuously over time and now most of the data is present in digital format. The adoption of the digital format for storing and sharing information has been slow to say the least when it comes to federal and state governments but now there are policies in place that make sure digital data storage and transfer.
To manage the vast amount of information created every day it has been decided to use government cloud computing so that this information is available all over the country. The data generated over the thousands of offices has to be accessed by millions of employees across the country. Government cloud computing eliminates the need to physically move information. But, there are other issues when you store such large amount of sensitive information online.
In certain law suits enough data is exchanged to fill over a thousand pages of discovery. E-Discovery policies have been implemented by a lot of state courts and nearly all federal courts. Despite the ease of data exchange given by the digital format, there have been few difficulties with the use of e-discovery. Some of the problems that have come up are how the information should be stored and for how long should it be stored and in order to address these problems dealing with digital data, government social media rules have been introduced.
The use of social media by a government employee is treated as a matter of concern as the employee is representing the government. The tone and voice that a lot of people use on social networks can mostly be less formal than other forms of communication. As a result government social media should be monitored and supervised by the most professional members of the organization. So, that social media is used in an useful and appropriate way.
Every organization making use of social media or any other form of digital information exchange must adopt a policy regarding how digital information is stored and protected as well as how long information must be retained. There are laws regarding the retention of data so make sue tat your policies are always in sync with the law. More often than not, you will find laws that del with human resources and employee data and for how long they must be stored. Both the state law and the federal law are applicable on information concerning environmental and protection issues.
Despite the few disadvantages, making use of digital formats for data storage will help almost every company by increasing the efficiency of the members and by saving time and money. The positives out of the system will be much more than the negatives if applied correctly.