Federal Council examines longer retention of emails from the administration
Published: Friday, Jan 12th 2024, 15:10
Back to Live Feed
The case of untraceable e-mails in the General Secretariat of the Interior Minister Alain Berset has revealed gaps in the archiving and filing of documents. The Federal Council is now examining various adjustments.
In summer 2022, the Tages-Anzeiger reported that the Department of Home Affairs had disclosed at a meeting with the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (Edöb) in December 2021 that it had deleted the correspondence between Berset's employee Lukas Bruhin and the woman who was trying to blackmail Berset. "Weltwoche" had previously reported on email correspondence between Bruhin and the woman.
The Control Committee of the Council of States (CPC-S) subsequently investigated the case - and demanded clarification of the relevant provisions in the Public Records Act and the Archiving Act in a report. The tenor of the report was that the current requirements for filing and archiving documents in the Federal Administration were not uniform.
Longer retention period is being clarified
The Federal Council partially shares the conclusions of the GPK-S and intends to have individual aspects of the storage and archiving of official documents and public access to these documents examined, as it announced on Friday. The Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) is to submit proposals to the government by the end of 2024 on how to proceed.
The Federal Council wrote in its statement that transparency and the traceability of administrative actions are central to the public's trust in the authorities. It therefore wants to examine whether special measures should be taken for employees of the Federal Administration to comply with the retention and archiving obligation when they leave federal employment.
According to the Federal Council, this could include, for example, training courses and information sheets to make employees aware of the filing of business-relevant information. Furthermore, according to the statement, it should be examined whether the retention period for electronic data of departing employees should be extended - taking into account the data and privacy protection of the persons concerned.
In addition, the Federal Council wants to examine whether and to what extent documents relating to both the official activities and the private life of administrative staff must be made accessible to the public. In this context, the question also arises as to whether special consideration should be given to the situation of magistrates.
Right to inspect official documents
The right of the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) to inspect the documents of the Federal Administration is also to be examined. The Federal Council intends to have any intervention options of the FDPIC examined if his right of inspection is not respected.
However, the Federal Council rejects the recommendation of the GPK-S to examine the Edöb's right to issue a ruling. The Edöb does not perform a supervisory function in the area of public access law, but rather a mediation function. In the view of the Federal Council, the introduction of a power to issue a ruling would therefore contradict the nature of the informal conciliation procedure between the federal administration and the public.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic