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beyond_hatred t1_je9undq wrote

Reply to comment by InevitableMeh in N.H. governor’s policy to destroy records within 30 days raises transparency concerns by mindi4nh

It should be indefinite. There's no technical reason why the state can't retain all records permanently. Storage and archiving are cheap.

Also, some crimes don't have a time limitation for how long they can be prosecuted. If the records are there 50 years back, it might make all the difference.

Also, the statute of limitations for any given crime is enforced by the courts. It should not be short-circuited by a state employee pre-emptively destroying potential evidence.

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alkatori t1_jea7hnr wrote

It's because they don't want the liability and potential costs of investigation. You're right, it could be stored indefinitely. It's likely not worth keeping all records after 10 or 20 years vs the continual cost of storing it. But certainly longer than 30 days.

I used to work in public safety, 911 systems primarily.

Chicago holds 911 and radio recordings for 90 days.

They could hold them longer with the equipment they have. They don't want to. They want to be able to respond to all information requests with the fact that they only retain data for 90 days.

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jeagerkinght t1_jeb2n2y wrote

Currently building a storage server for a municipal government in central NH, storage is not "cheap". I certainly agree that records should be kept for longer than 30 days, but indefinite is also way too long. The 7 years comment seems appropriate

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Happy_Confection90 t1_jef5wuy wrote

But it's 2023. You don't have to keep physical copies to store files indefinitely. All you need is a scanner and a server that fits in a closet sized room.

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jeagerkinght t1_jef8m3z wrote

Oh I agree completely, digital is the way to go, but by no means is digital storage "cheap". Cheaper than it used to be? Certainly. But not "cheap", especially on a government budget.

To throw this into perspective, the city that I work for is spending $82k on 50ish TB of storage and backing that up. And that doesn't include the operating system to run on the server, nor the power to actually run it. Thats just the physical system. Not to mention that that hardware is only good for so long, then it need to be replaced and all that data needs to be migrated. And you need to pay someone to manage that server to make sure nothing gets corrupted or lost due to unforeseen hardware failure.

I still think that this data should be kept for 7 years, maybe longer, but no matter how you store it, it's not "cheap".

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Fraggle-of-the-rock t1_jea7if0 wrote

You’d be surprised to know how many divisions in the State actually still use physical files. The division I work for has to keep physical files and record’s because our computer system is 20+ years old, not internet based and can’t support saving documents. Basically, it’s a simple database. If our records go up in smoke, we’ve got very little info to run on. That’s the least of the worries though.

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