We've all been hearing a lot during and after the campaign of President-elect Obama and his use of a BlackBerry constantly for communication with staffers and others. It's understandable why those responsible for managing electronically stored information (ESI) at the White House would do their best to dissuade the President-elect from using his BlackBerry, particularly when his safety is a concern. The constant polling that the device does to stay in touch with the mobile network can be followed and allow the device's whereabouts to be tracked. That's enough of a risk by itself.

But from an Information Governance perspective it takes on a whole new meaning. If anyone who knows anything about unstructured content and records management has his way, that BlackBerry will be turned off for the next 4 or 8 years. That's because according to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, all records of the President become the property of the government, and in the world of ESI that includes BlackBerry messages, text messages, instant messages (IMs) and anything else that might be used in the administration. Much like the Palin controversy, Information Governance will affect communications for government and political officials, simply because the public has a right to know. And since the record must be preserved, it opens up liability if there was ever a subpoena.

So President-elect Obama's people will probably take the easiest way out "“- no more BlackBerry for the Chief Executive.

But what about executives and other officers in companies that are governed by rules and regulations concerning Information Governance? Nobody's going to tell them they can't use these devices. That's where the real challenge comes in. How do you track all of these messages about who made what decision? All of this will need to be "discoverable" in the event of litigation. Corporate Records Managers, IT Managers and Compliance Managers all should take heed of this issue. It's not going away.


*BlackBerry image courtesy of Marvin Kuo.