Records vs Non-Records: What Counts as Evidence

Records vs Non-Records: What Counts as Evidence

Records vs non-records is the first distinction any information governance program has to get right, and most organizations never make it explicitly. In the opening episode of our lightning round series, Lee Karas and Maura Dunn answer both halves of the question: what is a record, and what is not. A record is any data, in any format, that is recorded or capable of being recorded and that provides evidence of a transaction, a decision, a policy, a process, an obligation, a contract, an agreement, a legal right, or an ownership interest. Format is irrelevant. Structured data, photographs, and recordings qualify; an unrecorded conversation does not, which is why "did you get that in writing" has survived as advice. Maura draws the line at evidence: discarded drafts, background reading, and abandoned research are recorded and are not records, because they are not where the organization landed. Published material you cite belongs to whoever originated it, so your record is the citation, not the source. We close with a Sarbanes-Oxley example that makes the principle concrete: in vendor verification, the record is not the tax identification number you looked up, it is the documented fact that you checked it.