Like many laws, the Patriot Act has its detractors and supporters. But what exactly is the Patriot Act and, for the purposes of this article, how does it affect records management?

The Patriot Act and records management
The ways in which the Patriot Act influences records management actually has a lot to do with the industry involved. Some industries such as finance and banking, real estate, and telecommunication are the ones that see an impact from the Act on their records management practices.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act is especially important for and to records management. Under this section of the Act, with a court order, authorized government bodies can demand various types of records. These include medical, travel, library and telephone records. This aspect of the Act was highly publicized since it impacted so much on personal records and not just records held by institutions.

The revised Act also gives the FBI the power to request records without allowing the persons under investigation to be made aware of this fact. The well-known NSLs (National Security Letters) give agents the right to request customer information without their knowledge.

This use of NSL impacts records management as it can be used to get bank records, email correspondence, and telephone records. This means that proper retention schedules and archiving and disposal policies have to be established so as to retrieve these materials in a timely manner. However, the use of NSLs was deemed a breach of First Amendment rights by US District Judge Victor Marrero.

Financial institutions and banking
Under the Patriot Act, banks and financial institutions have to be particularly careful with their records management practices. Section 314 allows for financial institutions to share information between themselves; it also provides for financial institutions to share information with the government.

This is meant to curtail or at least minimize money laundering -- which is a popular means of funding terrorism or other criminal activities.

Under the Act, financial institutions must be able to produce, upon request from a federal banking agency, records of persons opening a bank account in the USA.