(a) Each state agency must:
  (1) Manage electronic state records according to the state agency's records management program and certified records retention schedule regardless of format, system, or storage location;
  (2) Maintain state agency ownership and responsibility for state records regardless of where the record originates or resides, including but not limited to cloud computing services and social media sites;
  (3) Develop and maintain up-to-date documentation about electronic records systems adequate to identify, retain, read, process, or migrate the records and ensure the timely, authorized final disposition of electronic state records;
  (4) Ensure that electronic state records remain readily retrievable and readable for as long as they are maintained by the state agency by migration or by maintaining any software, hardware, and documentation required to retrieve and read the electronic state records;
  (5) Maintain descriptive and technical metadata required for electronic state records to be fully understandable by the appropriate designated community, including metadata necessary to adequately support the authenticity, integrity, reliability, and usability as well as the preservation of a record;
  (6) Preserve the authenticity, integrity, reliability, and usability of the records;
  (7) Ensure that electronic state records are readily retrievable and readable independently of other records in the information or storage system;
  (8) Ensure that system backups that are required for disaster recovery are not used to satisfy records retention requirements unless indexed for ready retrievability and tested on a regular basis; and
  (9) Require all third-party custodians of records to provide the state agency with descriptions of their business continuity and/or disaster recovery plans as regards to the protection of the state agency's vital state records.
(b) Any technological component for electronic state records developed, used, or acquired by a state agency must meet the following requirements:
  (1) Support the state agency's ability to meet the minimum requirements in subection (a) of this section to preserve and make readily retrievable and readable any electronic state record or to extract or migrate the record in as complete a form as possible for its full retention period; and
  (2) Provide security to ensure the authenticity of the records in accordance with 1 TAC 202 regarding security programs.

Source Note: The provisions of this §6.94 adopted to be effective August 31, 2017, 42 TexReg 4285