Boulder County Email Policy

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SECTION II CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT AND CODE OF CONDUCT NUMBER II.21 Electronic Mail (June 26, 2012) A. Employee Responsibility 1. Boulder County employees, who use the county's electronic media, shall review and comply with this Electronic Media Policy and any guidelines issued to outline compliance with this Policy. If changes are made to this policy or guidelines, Departments will be notified. Violations of the policy and guidelines may result in the loss of access privileges and other disciplinary actions, up to and including termination. Boulder County employees shall comply with all applicable local, state, federal, and international laws related to the use of electronic media. Any attempt to violate these laws using the county's electronic media may result in civil or criminal legal action.

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B. Electronic Media Policy 1. Electronic media, provided by Boulder County to employees, shall be governed by the following policy: a. All Boulder County policies and procedures regarding employees' conduct apply to the use of email. Only appropriate communications should be sent. Electronic communications should be free of comments that would offend someone on the basis of his or her age, race, gender, color, gender identity, religion, political beliefs, socioeconomic status, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or genetic information or any other harassing comments as would otherwise be prohibited by county policy. In addition, no statements that are defamatory to any person should be sent via electronic media. b. Boulder County reserves the right to monitor, access, investigate, and intercept its electronic mail, voice mail,

computer systems, and internet access at any time, with or without advance notice. c. Since all information or communications prepared or conveyed using Boulder County's electronic media belong to the county, this information or communication may be disclosed without the permission of the employee. d. Individual passwords and confidential labels do not restrict Boulder County access to any information or communications, either during transmission or while in storage. The electronic mail and computer systems are the property of Boulder County and are intended for business communications that enhance each employee's ability to conduct business for the county and serve the public. Electronic mail communication should be courteous and business-like just as written business communications would be. 2. Electronic mail, provided by Boulder County to employees, shall be governed by the following policy: a. Electronic mail or other Boulder County electronic media shall not be used to harass, offend, or annoy other internal or external users. b. Employees shall not commit confidential information to electronic mail, because the confidentiality of such material cannot be guaranteed. c. It is possible other Boulder County employees may view a user's electronic mail messages inadvertently, since there is no guarantee of privacy. d. Employees shall not allow anyone to use their electronic mail password or share their account without prior supervisor consent. It is each user's responsibility to protect his/her account from unauthorized use by changing passwords periodically and assigning passwords that are not easily guessed. e. Employees shall not forge or attempt to forge electronic mail messages. f. Employees shall not attempt to read, delete, copy, or modify electronic mail of other users. g. Employees shall not use electronic mail to send unsolicited junk mail, "for profit" messages, or chain letters. h. Employees shall not use electronic mail to misrepresent a user's identity or affiliation.

i. Employees can use email for the sale of personal items; however, employees shall not use electronic mail for commercial purposes. j. The indiscriminate sending of email to large groups is to be avoided. An appropriate receiving group should always be considered and identified when mail is sent to a mail group. k. As the county email system is interconnected with other organizations' email systems and the worldwide internet, county employees should be careful to note in their communications whether their comments are personal or represent the official position(s) of the county. In the former, it would be appropriate to include a tag message that contains the senders name, official title, email address, possibly a phone number, and a statement such as, "Opinions expressed represent those of the sender and not the official position of Boulder County.” 3. County mail that is broadcast: a. Several uses of email have been identified that are broadcast to groups such as "all". Materials sent to all employees should be limited to the listed purposes below. Sending material to the #all group for anything other than Boulder County business or Boulder County sponsored projects is not permitted. b. The following identifiers have been established to allow for labeling of such mail: 1) ALERT: High priority items that should be immediately read (for things such as office closing due to snow, a county emergency, a potentially dangerous situation in a county building and the like). Extreme discretion should be used for this identifier. Authored by designated security, communications staff or EO/DH only 2) BENEFITS: Employee benefits authored designated benefits staff only 3) INTERNAL: News, announcements, updates, etc. pertaining to internal county services and facilities. Announcements must be of interest or importance to all county employees. Authored by designated Administrative services staff or employees with responsibility for critical internal functions. 4) I.T. NOTICE: Announcements that notify employees

about changes, updates, critical alerts, etc. pertaining to the county’s information technology systems, including computers, databases, websites, phones, etc. 5) NEWS: County-sponsored projects or news-related events tied directly to a county program or service. Authored by designated communications staff only 6) POA: Position Opening Announcement 7) POLICIES: Policies and procedures 8) SURPLUS: Items that are being offered to any office or department as surplus must use #SURPLUS instead of #ALL 9) TRAINING: Announcements of county training classes, seminars, workshops, brown bag lunch sessions, and the like that relate to county business. c. Policies and procedures of sending mail to all employees: 1) Attached documents should be converted and uploaded as PDFs (instead of Word or Excel documents) 2) The sender of the email should address the #all group in the “BCC section to ensure that if a recipient selects “reply all,” they reply to the sender not to the entire county. 3) Before sending an email to the #all group, employees should consult their supervisor or designated communication staff to determine whether the message is relevant for all county employees or if it is more appropriate an InsideBC article or a smaller, more targeted audience such as a department, building or office group list. 4. Purging and Deleting Email: a. The computer network system has certain schedules with regard to the purging of email established by the Electronic Mail Guidelines and Internet guidelines as amended from time to time by the Information Technology Manager. b. Once email messages are purged from the system, they are stored by alternative methods as set forth in this policy statement. 5. Storage:

a. The computer network will, on certain schedules established by the Electronic Mail Guidelines and Internet Guidelines as amended from time to time by the Information Technology Manager, store all email messages on an alternative storage system. 1) In order to avoid storing email that is unnecessary, employees should read and immediately delete any email messages that are of a personal nature. Please note, however, that the deletion of email does not erase it from recapture. 6. Archiving (or saving): a. Archiving in the email system is no longer authorized. Any record which a user finds necessary to save for future use shall be saved to the word processing system or printed and kept in a hard copy and then subject to any retention schedule applicable to those formats. 7. Retention: a. On an annual basis, the Division of State Archive and Public Records will send to all county departments an updated list of all records that must be retained or that may be destroyed for that year. 1) For State retention purposes, email documents should be considered "correspondence" and will be retained according to the methods set forth in this policy. 2) For all other forms of documents/records, it is the responsibility of each office/department to ensure compliance with the State requirements for archiving and retention. For more information or assistance on such requirements, the individual offices/departments should contact the County Attorney's office and/or the County's Records Manager in the Information Technology Division. 8. Email Retention: a. Email will be purged from all Boulder County servers every 180 days. b. No email will be retained on any electronic backup media past 180 days, which includes servers and personal

computer back up devices like tape drivers, CD/DVD disks, or flash drives. 1) The daily server backup of email will be only used to recover from major server/disk failure that requires a restore of the email system. No individual email restores will be permitted. c. Monthly backups created for all electronic information other than emails will be retained one year. All of these retention periods may be extended upon receipt of notice to the IT Manager from the County Attorney's office of the need to secure existing emails for possible production pursuant to the act or litigation discovery.

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