ImageMaster Retention Management

ImageMaster provides operations to manage the lifecycle of documents based on minimum storage periods and automatic deletion. Retention plans can be defined that protect documents from deletion or modification for a given period. An action can also be an automatic deletion of a document if certain criteria are met, for example typically after the expiry of some legally prescribed retention period.

ImageMaster retention management is compatible with the retention management functionality of Amazon S3, ECS, Hitachi HCP and NetApp SnapLock. This kind of protection is stronger than permission management because it is difficult or not supported at all to circumvent such a protection, for example by revoking a deletion protection prematurely.

Actions in a retention plan can be time-based or designed for specific projects. An action can be triggered as the result of a predefined event, for example when an attribute value of a document changes. A related overview is given in the chapter “Retention Management Configuration” in the user manual of the AdminClient [UM AdminClient] (Retention management configuration). With Retention Management you can plan the entire lifecycle of your documents from archiving to deletion and automate the process. Use cases like the following are typically covered:

• There often is a minimum storage requirement by law:

  • Trade and tax laws require records to be kept.

  • Data must be kept for insurance or liability reasons.

• Data protection must comply with the GDPR in the EU law, for example:

  • User-specific data may only be kept as long as a relevant reason exists.

• The general aim is to minimize risks, for example:

  • Keeping unnecessary data creates an unnecessary risk for the data to be leaked to hackers.

  • Risks can be reduced in the context of court mitigation.