Washington Administrative Code

The representative of the state auditor shall be ex officio chairperson of the state records committee. The representative appointed by the attorney general shall be vice chairperson. The state archivist shall act as secretary and shall be responsible for the proper recording of …

The state records committee may adopt appropriate procedures for records disposition authorization, scheduling, and other matters relating to the retention, preservation, or destruction of public records of state agencies; may exercise such further powers as are granted by chapte…

The committee shall review records retention and disposition schedules submitted to it for authorization and may veto, approve, or amend the schedule or any or all records series contained therein. Approval of a schedule or amended schedule shall be by majority vote of the state …

The state records committee shall meet in open session at least quarterly to consider all business relevant to the duties of the committee, at the office of the state archivist, Olympia, Washington.[Statutory Authority: RCW 40.14.020. WSR 12-06-053, § 434-624-050, filed 3/5/12, e…

A representative appointed by the state auditor, the state archivist, and a representative appointed by the attorney general shall constitute a committee to be known as the local records committee. Reference: RCW 40.14.070.[Statutory Authority: RCW 40.14.020. WSR 24-15-059, § 434…

The representative of the state auditor shall be ex officio chairperson of the local records committee. The representative appointed by the attorney general shall be vice chairperson. The state archivist shall act as secretary and shall be responsible for the proper recording of …

The local records committee may adopt appropriate procedures for records disposition authorization, scheduling, and other matters relating to the retention, preservation, or destruction of public records of local government agencies, and may exercise such further powers as are gr…

The local records committee shall review lists of records submitted to it for destruction authorization and may veto the destruction of any or all items contained therein.The local records committee shall also review recurring disposition schedules recommended to it by agencies o…

To facilitate the work of the local records committee, the state archivist shall have reasonable access to all public records, wherever kept, for the purposes of information, surveying, or cataloging them and shall perform the following duties:(1) Provide guidelines to local gove…

The local records committee shall meet in open public session at least quarterly to consider all business relevant to the duties of the committee, at the office of the state archivist, Olympia, Washington.[Statutory Authority: RCW 40.14.020. WSR 12-06-054, § 434-630-060, filed 3/…

No public record other than office files and memoranda of any local government agency shall be destroyed until it is six years old or until the six-year retention is reduced by the local records committee for records that are shown by the requesting agency that a six-year retenti…

Requests to destroy public records in the possession of local government agencies shall be approved only by the local records committee and shall be of two types as further set forth in these regulations; namely:(1) Listed nonrecurring authorization; and(2) Recurring disposition …

County, municipal, and other local government agencies may request authority to destroy noncurrent public records having no further administrative or legal value by submitting to the local records committee lists of such records on forms provided by the division of archives and r…

A local government agency, as an alternative to submitting lists, may elect to establish a records control program based on recurring disposition schedules recommended by the agency to the local records committee. The schedules are to be submitted on forms provided by the divisio…

The local records committee may approve and issue records retention/disposition schedules which shall constitute authority to dispose of specific records, held commonly by like agencies, after a required retention period, on a recurring basis until the schedule is either amended …

The state archivist may furnish suggestions and guidelines to local governmental agencies for their assistance in the preparation of lists and schedules and may furnish information relating to any other matter relating to the retention, preservation, or destruction of public reco…

When the state or local records committee has authorized the destruction of public records in accord with chapter 40.14 RCW, it shall be the responsibility of the agency having requested or received such authorization to cause such records to be disposed of promptly and effective…

It is the agency's responsibility to insure that records exempt from disclosure per chapter 42.17 RCW, or which are otherwise considered confidential, are protected from unauthorized access during any disposal process. The primary purpose of such disposal shall be that of reducin…

Pursuant to disposal authorization from the state or local records committee, an agency may dispose of records by recycling, under the following conditions:(1) The prompt destruction of the records shall be insured, and the responsibility for such destruction shall continue to be…

The state archivist shall adopt rules under chapter 34.05 RCW setting standards for the durability and permanence of public records maintained by state and local agencies:(1) Governing procedures for the creation, maintenance, transmission, or reproduction of photographic, optica…

(1) This rule prescribes standards for electronic recording of real property documents in those Washington counties in which the county recording officer elects to accept electronic real property documents for recordation.(2) These standards are based on recommendations of the Wa…

For the purpose of this chapter:(1) "Delivery package" means a document, group of documents, related or unrelated, bundled into a single entity for electronic transfer.(2) "Document" means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or ot…

(1) Technical standards and implementation guidelines.(a) Electronic recording of real property documents shall meet technical standards for document formatting and document data fields and follow implementation guidelines as prescribed by the Property Records Industry Associatio…

The electronic recording standards commission is established in accordance with RCW 65.24.040.[Statutory Authority: Chapter 65.24 RCW. WSR 13-03-070, § 434-661-100, filed 1/14/13, effective 2/14/13.]

The purpose of the electronic recording standards commission is to advise the secretary of state in the following areas:(1) Rules necessary to implement the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act (URPERA);(2) Standards and practices affecting electronic recording in this …

(1) The commission will consist of at least seven and no more than thirteen members chosen by the secretary of state to represent a range of recording offices by size, geographic regions of the state, and general expertise in electronic recording. A majority of the commission mus…

Commission meetings will take place at least once a year and may occur at the annual Washington state association of county auditors recording conference. Additional meetings may be called by the secretary of state or the commission. All meeting dates and times will be posted on …

A simple majority of the regularly appointed commission members constitute a quorum. If seven positions are filled, the quorum is four.[Statutory Authority: Chapter 65.24 RCW. WSR 13-03-070, § 434-661-140, filed 1/14/13, effective 2/14/13.]

Commission members are not compensated for their service, but may be reimbursed for expenses incurred in the conduct of their official duties. Reimbursement is at current state rates for travel and all reimbursement requests must be received within thirty days of incurring the ex…

The state archivist will act as secretary for the commission and will ensure the retention and lawful disposition of records of the commission in accordance with chapter 40.14 RCW.[Statutory Authority: Chapter 65.24 RCW. WSR 13-03-070, § 434-661-160, filed 1/14/13, effective 2/14…

Pursuant to the provisions of chapters 40.14 and 42.56 RCW, and RCW 43.105.250, the rules contained in this chapter are intended to ensure that electronic public records are securely preserved for their minimum retention period for present and future access and/or are transferred…

Unless the context indicates otherwise, words used in this chapter shall have the meaning given in this section."Agency" means any department, office, commission, board, or division of state government; and any county, city, district, or other political subdivision or municipal c…

Electronic records are bound by the same provisions as paper documents as set forth in chapter 40.14 RCW. Electronic records must be retained pursuant to the retention schedules adopted by the records committees. Destruction of, or changes to the retention period of, any public r…

Electronic records must be retained in electronic format and remain usable, searchable, retrievable and authentic for the length of the designated retention period. Printing and retaining a hard copy is not a substitute for the electronic version unless approved by the applicable…

Electronic records designated as "archival" must be retained in their original format along with the hardware and software required to read the data in that format unless the converted records have been sampled for completeness and accuracy of the migration to a new system and/or…

Electronic records rendered obsolete through the verified accurate migration to a more current media file format for readability and not designated as "archival" may be considered a secondary copy and disposed of as directed by chapter 40.14 RCW.[Statutory Authority: RCW 40.14.02…

The agency must maintain chain of custody of the record, including employing sufficient security procedures to prevent additions, modifications, or deletion of a record by unauthorized parties. If there is a break in chain of custody, it must be noted in the transmittal to the ar…

If encryption is employed on public records, the agency must maintain the means to decrypt the record for the life of the record as designated by the approved required minimum retention period for that record.[Statutory Authority: RCW 40.14.020(6), chapters 40.14, 42.56, and 43.1…

The digital archives must develop a transmittal agreement for the transfer of electronic records from state and local government agencies to the digital archives. At a minimum, a transmittal agreement between the digital archives and a state or local government agency must contai…

Electronic records will be directly transferred to the digital archives via web services, secure File Transfer Protocol, T-1 line or other direct transmission as outlined in the transmittal agreement. When direct transmission is not practicable, records must be transmitted via po…

Electronic records transferred to the digital archives must contain sufficient metadata to categorize, search and retrieve the records. All transfers of electronic records to the digital archives must identify the name of the originating agency, the date of transfer, the records …

All state and local government agencies must retain all web content in accordance with the approved retention schedules. Pursuant to a transmittal agreement, the digital archives will use a software program commonly known as a spider to copy state and local government websites th…

Emails created and received by any agency of the state of Washington in the transaction of public business are public records for the purposes of chapter 40.14 RCW and are subject to all of the laws and regulations governing the retention, disclosure, destruction and archiving of…

The purpose of this chapter is to establish standards and recommended practices for the creation, preservation, access to, and retention of public records on electronic imaging systems. Electronic imaging systems may legally be used for recording, producing, reproducing, maintain…

An electronic document imaging system is a computer-based configuration of equipment and software that stores machine-readable document images and their associated character-coded index data for on-demand retrieval. Electronic images can be computer generated, or created through …

A specially designed input workstation is required to convert documents or images to machine-readable form for computer processing and storage. At a minimum, the input workstation includes a document scanner, an image processor unit, a video display unit, keyboard, and access to …

An image can be a document, picture, or graphic. An image can be produced by scanning paper or film documents, producing images through a computer program, receiving an image by means of a fax, or by other means.[Statutory Authority: Chapter 40.14 RCW. WSR 94-04-102, § 434-663-22…