Creation
1. The author of any newly created information shall analyse it in order to determine the electronic management system by which the information is to be managed, if it is to be captured and in which official repository system it is to be preserved.
2. Records shall be created in accordance with the formal requirements set out for the relevant type of records.
3. The Commission’s records shall be created as electronic records and shall be kept in its official electronic repositories.
However, in the following situations records may be created in a different medium or kept in a different manner:
(a)
where a provision of Union or national law so requires;
(b)
where protocol convenience imposes paper medium;
(c)
where practical reasons impede digitisation of the document;
(d)
where the preservation of the original analogue document has an added value because of its form or the material from which it is made or for historical reasons.
Digitisation
1. Information in analogue media created or received by the Commission shall be systematically digitised. The resulting electronic renditions, when captured in an official electronic repository, shall replace the corresponding original analogue documents, unless a handwritten signature is required by a provision of Union law or the law of the Member State or third country concerned.
2. Implementing rules adopted pursuant to Article 22 shall set out the procedural and technical details of digitisation, the applicable exceptions and the elimination of analogue records following their digitisation.
Capture
1. Each directorate-general or equivalent department shall regularly review the types of information created or received in the course of its activities to identify which ones are to be captured in an official electronic repository and, taking account of the context in which they were produced, to organise the management of these throughout their life cycle.
2. The captured records shall not be altered. They may be removed or replaced by subsequent versions until the file they belong to is closed.
Registration
1. Documents shall be registered if they contain important information which is not short-lived or if they may involve action or follow-up by the Commission or one of its departments.
2. Registers shall be set up to generate unique identifiers for the registered records.
Each register shall be connected to one or more electronic repositories. Exceptions may be made for security reasons.
Filing plan
The Commission’s filing plan shall use a common file classification across all Commission departments. That classification shall form part of the Commission’s activity-based management.
Computerised processes and systems
The directorates-general and equivalent departments shall keep and manage their records by means of computerised processes and computerised systems and structures with interfaces to ensure storage of, access to and recovery of records, unless required otherwise by a Commission provision.
Legal effects of electronic signatures, seals, timestamps and registered delivery services
1. A qualified electronic signature ( 14 ) shall have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature.
2. A qualified electronic seal ( 15 ) shall enjoy the presumption of integrity of the data and of correctness of the origin of that data to which the qualified electronic seal is linked.
3. A qualified electronic time stamp ( 16 ) shall enjoy the presumption of the accuracy of the date and the time it indicates and the integrity of the data to which the date and time are bound.
4. Data sent and received using a qualified electronic registered delivery service ( 17 ) shall enjoy the presumption of the integrity of the data, the sending of that data by the identified sender, its receipt by the identified addressee and the accuracy of the date and time of sending and receipt indicated by the qualified electronic registered delivery service.
Validity of documents and procedures
1. A document created or received by the Commission shall be considered to satisfy the validity or admissibility criteria where the following conditions are met:
(a)
the person from whom it originates is identified;
(b)
the context in which the document was produced is reliable and the document meets the conditions that guarantee its integrity;
(c)
the document complies with the formal requirements set out in the applicable Union or national law;
(d)
in the case of an electronic document, the document is created in a way that guarantees the integrity, reliability and usability of its content and the accompanying metadata.
2. An electronic rendition created by digitising an analogue document created or received by the Commission shall be considered to satisfy the validity or admissibility criteria where the following conditions are fulfilled:
(a)
no signature is required by a provision of Union law or the law of a Member State or third country concerned;
(b)
its format offers guarantees of integrity, reliability, durability, readability over time and ease of access to the information it contains.
Where a signed analogue document is not required, such an electronic rendition may be used for any exchange of information and for any internal procedure within the Commission.
3. Where a provision of Union or national law requires a signed original of a document, a document drawn up or received by the Commission shall satisfy that requirement if the document contains any of the following:
(a)
one or more handwritten or qualified electronic signatures;
(b)
one or more electronic signatures, other than qualified, providing sufficient guarantees about the identification of the signatory and the expression of their will in the signed document.
4. Where a procedure specific to the Commission requires the signature of an authorised person or the approval of a person at one or more stages of the procedure, the procedure may be managed by computer systems, provided that each person is clearly and unambiguously identified and that the system in question provides guarantees that the content is not altered during the procedure.
5. Where a procedure involves the Commission and other entities and requires the signature of an authorised person or the approval of a person at one or more stages of the procedure, the procedure may be managed by computer systems meeting conditions and providing technical assurances determined by mutual agreement.
Provision of data and information within the Commission
1. Data and information shall be made available and shared as widely as possible within the Commission, unless legal obligations require access to be limited.
2. In the interest of information sharing, directorates-general and equivalent departments shall ensure that their files are as widely accessible as the sensitivity of their content allows.
Information security and protection
Records shall be managed in accordance with the Commission’s security rules applicable to the protection of information. To this end, records, files, information systems and archives, including their networks and means of transmission, shall be protected by appropriate security measures for the management of classified information, sensitive non-classified information and personal data ( 18 ) .
Classified information shall be processed in accordance with the rules in force on security.
Source: EUR-Lex (Publications Office of the EU), © European Union, reuse permitted under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.
