Campaigners push back against San Diego County’s policy of auto-deleting government emails after 60 days

The San Diego County of the California state has enforced a policy to destroy all the emails generated by its government workers under 60 days until or unless they are flagged for preservation.

The controversial decision of the San Diego County has attracted widespread attention with several coalitions of organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Law Foundation protesting against it.

The EFF says that there are certain provisions in states such as California wherein the public can request to gain access to a plethora of public records. But enforcing shorter retention periods such as 60 days followed by a complete deletion will make it impossible for the public to get hold of important information.

These public records provide information about the decisions made by public officials and how they choose to spend public money. With such crucial aspects being tied to the public records, the decision to delete emails within 60 days of generation makes it hard for the public to monitor the government.

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