Adherence to laws, regulations, guidelines and specifications relevant to an organization’s business processes and operational area.

What are the Risks of not preserving digital materials?

Organization Type

Risk

Potential Consequences

All organizations

Data safety and security are compromised.

  • Data loss/corruption
  • Disruption of business/organisation’s functions
  • Confidence loss
  • Damage to reputation
  • Loss/reduction in funding/revenue
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Technologies used become obsolete; this may apply to elements such as hardware, software and file formats.

  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Required to maintain expensive legacy systems
  • Disruption of business/organisation’s functions
  • Unable to provide audit trails
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

The bits and bytes making up the digital information degrade over time.

  • Data loss/corruption
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Insufficient contextual information (metadata) to understand the information and for it to be useful.

  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Disruption of business/organization’s functions
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Lack of supporting legislation to facilitate preservation, particularly relating to copyright/IPR, privacy and legal deposit.

  • Unable to carry out necessary preservation actions
  • Data loss
  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Rate of data creation outstrips capacity for storage, processing and preservation.

  • Important digital objects are not captured within the preservation system
  • Data loss/corruption

All organizations

Insufficient funding available to allow sustainable preservation procedures and systems to be established.

  • Data loss/corruption
  • Unable to carry out necessary preservation actions
  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

All organizations

Insufficient staffing/skills to be able to carry out successful preservation.

  • Unable to carry out necessary preservation actions
  • Data loss
  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

Archives

Executive level support for digital preservation is not persistent

  • Unable to establish a sustainable, fit for purpose digital preservation programme
  • Data loss/corruption
  • Unable to provide access to digital objects
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

Business

Existing storage systems do not protect records from unauthorised change or corruption

  • Data loss/corruption
  • Disruption of business/organisation’s functions
  • Confidence loss
  • Damage to reputation
  • Loss/reduction in funding/revenue
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

Business

Staff fail to comply with organizational policy and processes in relation to management of records (reliability, authenticity, usability etc.),

  • Important digital objects not captured in preservation system
  • Necessary documentation/metadata not created/captured
  • Disruption of business/organisation’s functions
  • Unable to meet legal/regulatory requirements

Business

Inability to provide evidence of compliance with regulations

  • Loss of reputation and stakeholder confidence
  • Fines/sanctions

Business

Inability to produce reliable and authentic records necessary to pursue or defend legal claims

  • Undermines ability to reach resolution
  • Unsatisfactory or expensive settlements

Business

Volume of data continues to grow without action being taken

  • Data loss/corruption
  • Disruption of business’s functions
  • Increased costs now and in the future
  • Loss of productivity/revenue

Higher Education and Research

Litigation from consumers if data made available is not reliable and trustworthy

  • Requirement to pay fines/settlements/compensation
  • Gaps in the cultural/scholarly record
  • Field of research is set back/compromised
  • Loss of reputation

Libraries

No active programme/processes aimed at acquiring digital objects/collections

  • Data generated by the cultural and creative industries will be lost or inaccessible
  • Failure to protect the living national record
  • Primary sources for future research cannot be found, interpreted or re-used
  • Failure to meet organisational goals
  • Loss of reputation
  • Loss of funding

What Opportunities do preserved digital materials create? 

Organization Type

Digital Preservation can…

All organizations

protect investment by maintaining clear audit trails

Archives

hold governments to account by maintaining a clear and permanent audit trail

Archives

demonstrate a commitment to core statutory function for collection, for present and future generations

Business

enable better cooperation with regulatory bodies by sustaining access to reliable records as evidence of actions.

Business

allow an organization to defend decisions and attribute responsibility by sustaining access to reliable records as evidence of actions for legal, regulatory and IPR cases

Business

enable the organization to respond more efficiently to legal holds by sustaining access to reliable records

Business

protect against financial losses by enabling the provision of evidence for legal and regulatory cases

Higher Education and Research

demonstrate compliance with institutional and funder policies on data management policies 

Higher Education and Research

demonstrate long term vision and planning

Higher Education and Research

demonstrate greater transparency through documented audit trails

Libraries

demonstrate that the organization is meeting its obligations and mandate through documentary evidence of compliance to legislation

Museums and Galleries

enable robust and trusted iterations and audit trails, review and update to remain in line with the latest standards and best practices, safeguarding organizational reputation.

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