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August 1, 2022

A Guide to Records Management


Whether or not it’s the focus of your business model, your organization needs to manage information. Some information is insignificant and only needs to be retained for as long as it is immediately useful. Other information is so important that you could be prosecuted if you dispose of it improperly or before you’re allowed to. 

We want to use this series of posts to make it easier to understand the complicated network of regulations regarding how you collect, use, and dispose of your information. In this first part, we’ll provide a broad overview of your responsibilities when it comes to information management. The remaining posts in this series will cover some specific definitions and rules about your use and retention of various types of documents or records. The last post will cover the regulations about document disposition; or, what to do when you’re done with a document. 

The information in this post was primarily drawn from the Canadian General Standards Board’s regulation guide: Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence. Specific sections of the document will be referenced by their numbers in the original; other sources will be referenced with links where necessary. 

Disclaimer: This guide is not intended to serve as formal legal counsel; each organization is responsible for its own adherence to the relevant legislation. We encourage you to reference the linked Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB) document when developing your records management program. Rather, this blog post is intended to serve as an accompaniment to, or preview of, the CGSB document and relevant legislation.

Part 1: What is a records management program?

Every business or organization needs to have a records management program, or “RM,” (6.1). This is just a set of policies and procedures created by the organization about how they collect, use, maintain, and dispose of their documents and information (6.2.1). 

The range of business models, organizational structures, and information formats available make creating one universal rule set to regulate every possible situation impossible, so the government decided to give organizations the freedom to decide for themselves how they should manage their records. All you have to do is make sure that you have a consistent RM program, and that it meets certain minimum requirements. 

Requirements for a compliant RM program

Authority. The first requirement of the program is that it must be enforced within the formal structure of your organization (6.2.1). It is not enough to merely have a set of rules for how to handle documents written down somewhere, following those rules must be official company policy. Furthermore, the RM must explicitly reference the legislation that makes the program mandatory and acknowledge the responsibility of the organization to follow it. 

Leadership & Accountability. The other critical component of an RM is the designation of responsibilities, including the establishment of a Records Officer, or “RO” (6.2.2). The RO can be a particular person, or it can be tied to a particular position within the organization, but there must be an RO. This is for accountability purposes; it is the RO’s responsibility to ensure that the RM program is being followed and that it is compliant with legislation. Thus, the organization must grant the RO the appropriate authority to enforce and monitor its document management. If one individual is going to take on the responsibility of ensuring compliance, they’ll need the power to do so. 

In many cases, however, the RO cannot do this job alone. Especially in very large or complex organizations, or ones with very complex information systems, the RO might not have the technical expertise or familiarity to ensure compliance on their own. The organization must also designate certain responsibilities to other individuals or positions that are important to ensuring compliance, such as I.T. and digital security specialists. Which specific responsibilities should go to whom will vary depending on the specific circumstances of each organization, but they must be assigned in a way which ensures compliance. 

Consistency in Collaboration. The organization’s RM program must also be enforced on any third-party service providers (6.2.2.2). The policies and procedures that the organization follows internally when handling documents and information must be written into any contracts agreed with the service provider. This requirement applies to all service providers (6.2.2.3), so long as they will at some point come into contact with the organization’s documents. In fact, the regulations explicitly state that “[t]he organization shall not use an external service provider without ensuring that the [provider] signs a confidentiality and privacy protection agreement or is otherwise contractually bound to protect the organization from any breach of confidentiality or privacy,” (6.2.2.3).

The RM Manual. Finally, all of the policies and procedures of your RM must be written down in an RM manual (6.4.1). This serves as a consolidated record of the program so that if the government asks about your RM, or if investors are concerned about compliance, you can reassure them with a comprehensive guide to your policies and procedures. 

It’s also an effective way to communicate the program’s policies to members of the organization, and they can refer to it when they need to. Not only will this make it less likely for you to be found non-compliant, but it also helps keep your members accountable. If one of them violates one of the RM’s policies, access to a clear and accurate RM manual means that they can’t use misunderstanding their responsibilities as an excuse. 

Keeping the RM manual up-to-date with the organization’s records management policies is critically important. A reference guide can only be useful if it is accurate and comprehensive. If the policies need to change for any reason, the manual ought to be updated. If there is an inconsistency between actual practice and the policies laid out in the manual, it’s the manual that will be treated as authoritative. Even if your actual practices are up-to-date with new legislation, a manual listing out-of-date policies could get you in trouble. 

What does a Records Management Program need to do? (6.3.2)

Your organization’s RM program needs to include specific policies that accomplish each of the following goals:

  • Define its scope: describe the limits of the RM; what is and is not relevant to it.
  • Establish standards: describe the records management and information technology standards enforced by the RM.
  • Designate a Records Officer (RO): identify the RO and their responsibilities and authorities.
  • Require compliance: the RM has to require members of the organization to follow its rules, as well as the law, and whatever national and industry standards will ensure the records’ security and legal integrity. 
  • Require accuracy: the RM itself needs to require the RO and other members of the organization to keep it up to date with changes in legislation and information technology. 
  • Describe the policies: the reason for the entire program; the RM must describe and explain the “…requirements for records creation, management, use, destruction, and preservation.”
  • Enlist IT: the policies of the program have to require the I.T. department to collaborate with the RO in integrating and maintaining it into the organization’s information systems and regular course of business.
  • Require quality assurance: must include policies that identify the authorities and responsibilities of the RO to monitor compliance with the program and regulations.

Summary

  • A Records Management program is a set of document and information handling policies developed by and enforced within an organization.
  • Every organization operating in Canada must have a Records Management program (RM), and an accompanying Records Officer (RO).
  • The RM program and RO need to be granted authority within the organization to ensure compliance with legislation, including the authority to modify the program as the regulation changes.
  • Any other responsibilities and authorities that would be required to ensure compliance must be assigned to the appropriate persons or positions.
  • The RM program must be enforced on any service providers that the organization does business with through contractual obligations.
  • The RM program must be written down in a manual which is readily available to the organization’s members and kept up-to-date

Conclusion

This post tried to answer the questions “what is a record management program?”, “why should my organization have one?”, and “what does an RM program look like?” The next few posts will outline some specific document types and some important rules about each, including how long to hold onto them. Hopefully, the benefits of developing a comprehensive records management program, and the risks of not having one, are clear. For more information about maintaining a compliant records management program, check out the Canadian General Standards Board document Electronic Records as Documentary Evidence.

July 8, 2022

Why Document Scanning is Vital to Your Business

Elizabeth Carten is the Director of Operations here at Consentia and our foremost expert on digitization solutions like document scanning. She recently took time out of her busy schedule to sit down and chat with us about why digitizing your files is so important.

Before we get into the interview, what is digitization?

Anytime a digital copy of a physical file is created, that file has been “digitized.” So this includes paper scanning, film scanning, and manual or automated data entry.

Digitization, the transformation of information into digital formats, is not to be confused with “digitalization,” which is the complete or partial integration of digital technology into a process. So, you can digitize an invoice, but if you want to use digital technology to automate your accounts payable processing, then that is digitalization.

Flexibility

Q: What would you say is the primary benefit of digitization?

A: “When the COVID-19 pandemic happened, it highlighted the option for work to be done remotely, which is easier with digitized files. Having that flexibility to maintain business continuity through a crisis is essential.

Additionally, more employers are exploring remote or hybrid work options, which is further enabled by digitization.”

When the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, organizations which could quickly transition to remote work were better able to maintain productivity during lock-downs. Other organizations though, had a much harder time.

Some organizations, whose business models were built around in-person work, were simply incompatible with the new remote paradigm. Others, however, could have been better prepared, and yet suffered because of a lack of knowledge and infrastructure flexibility. Global crises are always a difficult time, but having your information trapped in physical formats in a centralized location is a preventable problem.

There have been multiple waves of COVID-19 as new variants develop, and there’s no way to be sure that there won’t soon be another. Additionally, experts warn that there may be more pandemics like it in the future, as we continue to become more interconnected globally and keep expanding into remote habitats.

No matter what new crisis is coming down the pike, digital information systems provide an organization with the flexibility to adapt quickly. Digitalizing your operation is an investment in your organization’s resilience, and digitizing your information is the first step.

Security

Q: Are digital formats more secure? How?

A: “Physical files are more vulnerable to loss, theft, or damage. The cost of storing them gets more and more expensive every year, and the difficulty and costs associated with accessing any particular file increases as the number of files does.”

As we discussed in a previous blog post: security = confidentiality + preservation. It’s not just about making sure that bad actors don’t get a hold of your information, it’s also about making sure you always have access to it when you need it.

If someone with malicious intent can get a hold of your information, then it’s not secure. In the same way, if your files are at risk of being lost in a labyrinthine storage system or physically damaged, then they aren’t secure either.

Digital formats can be organized and reorganized rapidly, and increasing volume doesn’t mean increased difficulty in locating specific files. Additionally, the incredible storage efficiency of digital means you only need to protect a fraction of the space that would otherwise be taken up by physical files. 

Q: But what about cybersecurity? Aren’t digital formats more vulnerable because of hackers and viruses?

A: “There are many steps you can take to mitigate cybersecurity risks, such as encryption, password protection, restricted access, and air-gapped servers. Not every company or organization will need the maximum level of security, but the options are available.”

Though cybersecurity threats are technically a risk for any internet-connected digital storage, this risk is negligible for most organizations. In addition to the measures listed by Director Carten, there are a few reasons why cybersecurity shouldn’t dissuade you from digitizing: low significance, competing automation of cybersecurity, and easy digital hygiene practices.

First, your information is important to you, it is important to your clients and partners, but it’s probably not as important to cybercriminals.

Cybercriminals are primarily interested in either money or prestige, so unless you are a very large, successful, or visible organization, you are not likely to be a high-value target. Being unremarkable is never a good defence strategy in itself, but it will never be your only means of defence. This is because automated cybersecurity features are almost certainly already protecting you.

A more common risk for all organizations than active targeting by cybercriminals is being targetted by their automated malware bots and viruses. However, automated cyber-threats can be countered by automated cybersecurity measures.

Most big-name software brands, like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, will have built-in cybersecurity and malware detection in most of their products. Encrypted options are also available and sometimes default. These companies are constantly improving and updating these features to protect their users from malware.

Though generally, it’s never a good idea to discount a threat entirely, a handful of self-funded, mostly hobby criminals usually can’t keep up with these massive software corporations, and most of their malware ends up blocked or diverted to your spam folder.

Not only are these software companies competing with cybercriminals, but they’re also competing with each other to provide the most secure option for their users.

Finally, good cybersecurity practices, like having strong, rotating passwords, and only using trusted sites and resources online, are common sense this far into the digital age. One of the most cost-effective solutions for organizations to prevent cyber-threats like viruses and phishing attacks is to put each employee or member through some basic digital hygiene education and cultivate a workplace culture that takes information security seriously.

So, yes, there are hackers and automated malware out there, but as long as you’re using software tools (including your operating systems) produced by major developers, you’re going to be protected by the financial incentive these companies have to keep their users safe. Combined with common best practices and a range of available security measures like encryption, restricted access, and multifactor authentication; digital infrastructure is the safest option.

Being conscious of cybersecurity concerns is just due diligence, but too much worry can be an unnecessary distraction.

Legality

Q: What about the legal reliability of your information? Isn’t paper a more reliable format in court?

A: “At one time, perhaps, but these days there are numerous digital solutions to reliability issues, such as tamper-proof PDF-A document formats, and metadata that tracks who has had access and what changes they’ve made.

Additionally, digital storage is easier to organize and access, making it more likely that you’ll be more able to promptly provide documentary evidence when it’s requested. This means you’re more likely to be found compliant with document retention legislation.”

One of the key advantages of digital information systems is the ease of duplication, replication, and editing. It may be reasonable to believe that these features would make your average digital document unreliable for legal purposes because it seems like anyone could tamper with the contents.

However, protected document formats like PDF-A and metadata tracking actually make some digital documents more reliable than paper. An encrypted, read-only document, will have metadata showing the date and time it was created, and by whom. Once it’s created, there is no way to reverse or manipulate the contents, so the format itself guarantees that they are the same as when the file was created.

On the other hand, a piece of paper with incriminating information could simply be replaced by an otherwise exact reprint with the incriminating details removed. Unless a mistake is made in the replacement document, there would be no way to tell it was edited. There’s no metadata for physical documents.

Redundancy

Q: Once you’ve digitized your documents, is it safer to dispose of the originals? Or is it better to hold onto them for posterity? Does it depend on the type of document? What about the type of organization?

A: “For the majority of business records, once you digitize, the digital copy becomes the legal copy. At that point, it’s recommended that you completely dispose of the physical copy, so that there are no issues around authenticity.

Because paper is a physical thing, it may feel more comfortable and certain than their new digital copies, so some organizations choose to keep their physical copies after digitizing, but they do so at their own risk.”

Counter-intuitively, redundancy can actually be a risk, not a benefit, for legally sensitive documents. In order to avoid any confusion with legal authorities about which copy of a document is the legal one, it’s better to have just one version.

It’s also worth remembering that redundancy within digital formats works differently than with physical formats. When you send a colleague, a partner, or a legal authority a file through digital technology, it’s not the same as when you physically send a paper copy. No digital entity physically travels from one computer to another. Instead, the arrangement of data which composes your “document” file, is copied onto the other computer.

Nothing leaves your machine, it’s just duplicated onto the other. This won’t be a revelation for anyone familiar with digital technology, but it does have one critical implication: you no longer need to worry about redundancy, so long as you have the file on at least two computers or servers.

Outsourcing Digitization & Record Management

Q: Should organizations scan their own documents in-house? Or is it safer or more cost-effective to outsource the job?

A: “Certain records can be scanned in-house because there are no specific regulations around retention of those documents. But some business records such as financial and human resources records do have specific retention requirements, including an audit trail.

Digital audit trails are more reliable because they can verify the record has not been manipulated. High-quality scanning machines have built-in software that performs this function in a way that can’t be tampered with. These aren’t the kinds of machines you’d buy for in-house scanning.”

Outsourcing a process isn’t always the best option, since you’ll have less control over the process than if you were to do it in-house. But when the process requires specialized equipment or expertise, it’s usually more efficient and effective to outsource.

If you want to keep your documents and information secure and reliable during the digitization process, then it’s probably better to leave it to the experts.

Q: Should an organization outsource their Records Management development, or have an in-house team create an electronic content management system (ECM)? Which is better for information security?

A: “Outsourcing your Records Management (RM) development needs is much more efficient, and it makes sure that your digital security is always handled by reputable experts.

Some multinational corporations may need to have their own RM team so they can tailor their ECM systems and practices to the various jurisdictions they operate in; but in general, out-of-the-box systems have most features organizations require and are much more cost-effective.”

In order to ensure the legal viability of documentary evidence, many jurisdictions require organizations to implement and adhere to a consistent program for managing their records. RM programs need to be written down and maintained so that legal authorities can hold organizations accountable to them, and ensure that the policies they put in place are compliant with legislation.

An Electronic Content Management system (ECM) is any software tool used by organizations to maintain and stick to their RM. Depending on the complexity of their operation and the size of their I.T. team, some organizations choose to build their ECM from scratch. For other organizations, however, outsourced solutions are usually more cost-effective.

Q: What about small organizations? It makes sense that larger organizations would benefit from improved organization and storage efficiency because they usually have a lot of information. But are there any benefits to digitization for smaller organizations, which may not have nearly as much information to manage?

A: “Well, first off, it’s worth pointing out that those advantages of digital apply to organizations of all sizes. However, outsourcing information and document management, including digitization, can be more beneficial for smaller organizations than it is for larger ones.

Members of smaller organizations are often stretched between multiple roles, and records management is not a priority.

By outsourcing, smaller organizations can make sure that their information and document management is taken care of, cost-effectively, by experts, and can instead focus on growing their business.”

Members of any small organization know that they have less margin for error than larger firms. You typically have many competitors and limited resources, so expensive mistakes don’t just threaten your bottom line, they threaten your survival as well. Getting your document management wrong can cause issues with legal authorities, cause you to lose important information, or hurt your relationship with clients and members; all of which are very expensive mistakes.

Just because your office space isn’t overflowing with loose documents doesn’t mean digitizing your paper files shouldn’t be a priority. Digitization makes your information compatible with digital systems, making it easier to share, access, and protect. Being dependent on physical files is a liability that smaller organizations can’t afford.

Q: Is it better to digitize locally? Why not ship your files to wherever the most prominent company is for digitization? Are there reasons why local services are better?

A: “Businesses today have a lot of options, however, staying local means that not only will you have faster access to your files throughout the duration of the scanning process, but there’s also less risk of loss or damage in transit because you’re not shipping them as far. Plus, you’ll be supporting local business, which helps out your local economy.”

One of the main benefits of digitization we’ve talked about so far is the ease of duplication, which makes ensuring redundancy much easier. Until your files are digitized, however, you’re dependent on having multiple paper copies of every page to protect yourself from loss. The further away you decide to ship your files, the longer they’ll be in transit, and the more likely they are to get lost or damaged en route.

Shipping thousands of financial, or otherwise legally sensitive documents isn’t as easy as loading them into a FedEx truck and calling it a day. Most jurisdictions have strict requirements for document management and retention of sensitive files, including ensuring secure transportation.

Bonus Question: Microfilm

Q: Some people claim that microfilm is still superior to digital for certain functions, yet almost no one is using it anymore. What would you say to advocates of microfilm? 

A: “While microfilm and microfiche were very popular and recommended up until the turn of the century, as digital technology evolved, the benefits of digital have surpassed film and fiche. The equipment required for viewing and even creating fiche and film is becoming rarer and rarer, so it will only get harder to access any film or fiche you may have. Additionally, with the common storage and handling practices of fiche and film, we are seeing the fiche and film beginning to disintegrate, so at this time, there is a concern that the images will be lost forever if not converted.”

For more information about the risks of waiting to digitize microfilm records, check out our two-part post on the topic:

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July 1, 2022

Microfilm: Should you (still) be using it? Part 2

In the previous post, we went over some of the vulnerabilities of microfilm; both physical vulnerability and its vulnerability as an information system. In this part, we’ll cover the ways that you can protect your microfilm from decay if you decide to keep it. We’ll also compare it to digital in case you’re thinking about converting your film into digital files.

Part 2 – How to Prevent Microfilm Decay

  1. Environmental Controls: Comprehensive environmental control, including temperature, humidity, light, and air quality, are essential for preventing most forms of damage and decay.
    1. Temperature: should be kept between 0 C and 18 C; the lower, the better.
    2. Humidity: should be kept as low as possible; below 50% at least, ideally below 25%.
    3. Air Quality: should be filtered and regularly assessed for airborne pollutants that will damage the film.
    4. Light: light should be kept to a minimum, and the film should never get any direct sunlight.
  2. Handling Precautions: Anytime you use a film for reference, you risk damaging it or accelerating its decay.
    1. Don’t: ideally, you should never handle a film after it’s been moved to long-term storage. No matter how strict or comprehensive your precautions are, there is no way to totally eliminate the risk of starting a decay process in a film. Any kind of handling should be minimized as much as possible
    2. Working Copies: a film which is likely to be used for reference more than a few times a century should have working copies and preservation copies so that damage/decay caused by handling can be limited.
    3. Temperature: before handling a film, the temperature in the storage room should be increased gradually up to comfortable temperatures so that no condensation develops
    4. PPE, but not for you: oils on your skin and moisture from your breath or sweat can affect your films whenever you’re handling them, so it’s best to wear a mask and gloves.
  3. Other storage precautions:
    1. Curate Room Materials: ensure none of the materials in the room are corrosive or acidic in any way. This includes the paint on the walls and cabinets and the material that the cabinets and storage boxes are made out of.
      • Cabinets & Boxes: should be made out of metal or high-quality plastic, not wood or cardboard. Wood products tend to release small amounts of acid and moisture into the air over their life spans.
      • Paint: If the walls in your storage room are painted, ensure that it’s at least three months old, as this is the amount of time it takes for even dry paint to stop releasing pollutant chemicals into the air. 
    2. Store Individually: due to the risk of contagious deterioration, like acetate decay, it’s best to isolate each reel or batch of fiche into its own airtight container. This way, decay or damage in any one item can’t spread to the others surrounding it. 
    3. Do Not Stack: Though the reels and plastic sheets may seem physically resilient and sturdy, they should not be stored in any way which puts excess weight on them, like stacking on the same shelf. In long-term storage, the lightweight of other reels above them has enough time to warp and disfigure films at the bottom of a stack. 
    4. Check Regularly: Despite minimal handling being ideal, the subtle and insidious ways in which film deteriorates means that storing your films and forgetting about them until you need them is not an option. Regular check-ups for acidity, air quality, and other risks are necessary to catch deterioration problems early.
      • If your organization is able to afford ideal environmental controls (i.e. nearly 0% humidity, refrigerator temperatures, high-quality air filters, airtight individual packaging, etc.), deterioration is less likely to start and will progress more slowly if it does. You won’t need to check on them as often.
      • If your organization cannot afford ideal environmental and storage conditions, you’ll need to check up on the films more often. Lower temperatures and humidity levels make problems like mould and oxidization less likely, but they can still develop in non-ideal conditions. 

Recall the claim made by microform enthusiasts that it can last for 500 years. Though the (relative) recency of their invention prevents us from having evidence of any films lasting this long, it may turn out to be true. But given the recommended storage precautions, the only way this 500-year mark seems achievable would be to lock your films away in a dark, airtight refrigerator underground, rarely checked at all and only handled by meticulous, masked and gloved film experts, and never used. If your organization is a well-funded national archive, then that probably doesn’t sound too bad. If you’re almost anyone else, these kinds of precautions probably just aren’t practical. 

So then, why would anyone ever use film? 

Paper has a proven, not theoretical, shelf life of nearly 2000 years when well maintained, and digital is far more compact and efficient. If the main advantages of microfilm are compact information storage and longevity, aren’t these advantages completely surpassed by a combination of paper and digital?

The answer is that microfilm strikes a balance between reliability, storage efficiency, and longevity, which makes it perfect for archival purposes. 

Even a poorly managed film library will last a few decades, which is much longer than digital’s 2-5 year maximum on unplugged digital storage. A well-maintained library may or may not actually last the full 500 years, but there are archives with films created in the 19th century still in good condition, eons compared to digital.

Storage efficiency. Even though digital is more compact than both of them, microfilm really is a lot more compact than paper. In a previous post, we illustrated the efficiency of digital by comparing a single terabyte hard drive, which can store 83 million pages of text, to the size of the stack that much paper would create. If we do the same thought experiment with a microfilm reel, and we pick a high-capacity variety (i.e. 215’ long, dual channel), it can contain over 10,000 images. That’s nothing compared to digital’s 83,000,000 in a terabyte, but 10,000 sheets of paper (if 0.1mm thick) is still a 1-meter tall stack that’s being compressed to a space roughly the size of a hard drive. Multiply that storage ratio across the millions of documents stored by archives and libraries, and you’re saving an enormous amount of space by using film instead of paper. 

Rare duplication. Every time you duplicate a file there’s a chance of losing information to corruption, whether that’s an imperfection on a filming table or a photocopier or a bad digital read. Even if a film library needs to be refilmed every 30 years (which is a short time compared to a well-maintained library), that’s still many fewer chances for a bad copy than digital. 

Legal reliability. Film is often considered more legally reliable than digital, which also makes it more valuable for archives. Digital information is more and more reliable every year as the technology for copying files continues to improve, but file corruption does still happen. It’s also much easier to secretly tamper with a digital record than a film record, which gives law courts a reasonable skepticism with digital records admitted as evidence. However, built-in metadata systems are improving many courts’ opinions on digital records.

Unlikely target for theft. One of the main disadvantages of film is its inaccessibility; it can take a long time to navigate a physical library of reels to find the exact record you’re looking for, and then scroll through a reel hundreds of feet long until you find the specific document you’re looking for. 

The silver lining of this disadvantage, however, is that information thieves are much less likely to target a film archive. Compared to digital information theft, which can be done instantly and remotely if you’ve got the technical aptitude, stealing information from a film archive would involve breaking into a secure facility, spending hours searching through the directory and scrolling the film, and then getting back out before law enforcement can surround the facility.

So then should you (still) be using microfilm?

That depends on a number of factors, but in general, probably not. The key function of microfilms, the need which they meet better than any available alternatives, is the reliable, compact, long-term storage of large volumes of legally sensitive documents. Archives and libraries tend to still use microfilm because they have enormous volumes of information in their collections, and much of it is often legally significant or confidential. These files also don’t need to be referenced often and need to be as reliable and authentic as possible.

For almost any other organization, microfilm is just not a cost-effective information system. The value it offers is hyper-secure, mass storage of important files that don’t need to be accessed very often. For any business or organization active in the ever-shifting modern economy, an important file that you don’t have rapid access to is a potential risk. Digital alternatives like isolated servers might not be quite as secure as a microfilm vault, but that level of security is well beyond most organizations’ needs and comes with the cost of very slow access times, often multiple hours, sometimes days. 

Should you digitize your microfilm?

Almost certainly. Again, unless you’re an archive, you probably want to have rapid access to any file important enough to keep secure. That’s not something microfilm can offer. Beyond that, digital files are far easier to duplicate, making the longevity of a microfilm reel over a hard-drive something of a moot point. A hard drive can last more than a decade, and the information on it can be transferred to a new drive so quickly that the cost in both money and time is negligible. 

Digitizing your films has the potential to backfire if it’s not done properly, however. Anytime you take your films out of storage, you risk beginning or accelerating some form of decay, so digitizing once takes time off their shelf-life. If all the information is converted over perfectly, then this isn’t a problem; but if anything needs to get redone, it will accelerate the decay of those files even further. Additionally, any time files of any kind are handled, there’s a small chance of more conventional damage like ripping, tearing, bending, or water damage; so it’s important to make sure your files are well taken care of. 

Consentia has been working with microfilm files for decades, and our film specialists know how delicate and important your files are. For secure, reliable, high-quality digitization services, choose Consentia.

June 24, 2022

Microfilm: Should you (still) be using it? – Part 1

First developed in the 19th century, microfilm technologies (a.k.a “microforms”) store tiny, accurate images that can be scaled up to a readable size with only a light and some magnification. A microfilm reel can store thousands of images in a small space. Thinner, more accessible sheets of microfiche hold 80 images in a space smaller than half a page of paper. These options allow for very compact information storage compared to full paper documents, and as a result, they came into widespread use throughout the 20th century, especially in libraries and archives.

Today though, microforms are commonly considered relics from a bygone era; before the days of digital computers and the internet. New microfilms are exceedingly rare, most date back to the late 1990s or before, usually long-term records stowed away in libraries and archives. Once digital information systems became widely available, the once-revolutionary technology very quickly fell into obscurity and disuse. Despite having many advantages over paper, microfilm could not hope to keep up with digital’s efficiency, speed, and flexibility; and computers have only become more powerful and available since then.

Part 1 – Understanding Microfilm Decay

One of the primary advantages commonly credited to microforms is their longevity. Authors, archives, and microform companies have pointed out that, theoretically, microfilms should last as long as 500 years, so long as they’re stored “properly.” That may sound pretty straightforward; if something is important enough to include in a record, it’s probably not something you want to risk losing by improper care. 

It’s worth noting, however, that microfilms haven’t been around long enough to confirm that projection, and yet many microform libraries have already deteriorated, some of them only a few decades old. These impressive, theoretical claims aren’t necessarily inaccurate, but they do implicitly obscure the two primary drawbacks of microforms: they’re delicate and hard to replace. 

Delicacy – Decay

At first glance, microfilms do not appear exceptionally delicate. Even after a decade in storage, a microfilm reel can still survive being dropped or shaken, and boxes of reels, probably don’t require “FRAGILE” labels (unless, of course, they are very old). By “delicate,” then, we mean that longevity anywhere close to 500 years requires expensive and precise environmental controls, meticulous care, and consistent handling protocols. They’re not exceptionally delicate in the here and now, but living up to the claim is a delicate and difficult process.

Microfilms degrade in a number of ways, including (but not limited to) Acetate Decay, Redox, and Embrittlement. Following proper storage protocols and precautions can prevent all of these from happening to your films, but as you’ll see, such preventative measures are very complex, and often more expensive than other alternatives. Every individual aspect contributing to that complexity is another way for mistakes to be made that could compromise your films. 

Types of Film Decay: Causes & Solutions

Problem 1 – Acetate Decay (a.k.a “Vinegar Syndrome”)

When the acetate compounds in your film start to decay, they turn into acetic acid, which gives off a distinctive vinegar smell. Not only is the breakdown of the acetate compounds a form of damage in and of itself, the product of that decay, acetic acid, then goes on to continuously damage the other components of the film. The results can include delamination, anti-halation colour distortions, plasticizer exudation, shrinkage, and fading dye (if your film is in color). 

According to Craig Saper, a professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County writing for The Atlantic, back when microfilms were more ubiquitous, Vinegar Syndrome was so common that “…librarians and researchers sometimes joked about salad being made in the periodical rooms.” 

Cause – Airborne Contaminants

Exposure to pollutants and moisture in the air causes the acetate compounds to break down, producing acetic acid. The reaction isn’t instantaneous, of course, but without strict air quality and humidity controls, every time a film is outside of an airtight container there’s a chance it will begin or accelerate the acetate decay. 

Additionally, the fumes released by the acetic acid as it eats away at one film can spread through the air to kick off the same reaction in another film sitting next to it. If there are any leaks in your air-tight containers, this contagious problem could potentially spread from one film to an entire collection.

Solution – Re-filming or Digitizing

Acetate decay isn’t inevitable, but it is irreversible, and once it sets in your film has only a short time before it’s completely unusable. Any information not saved by creating new copies will be lost forever as the film begins to curl and the images decay.

Creating film copies of documents for the first time is time-consuming and expensive. Creating duplicates of older films is a little easier since you won’t have to process all of the original paper documents, just the condensed reel form; thus, duplicating damaged films should be cheaper than creating new ones. 

However, you are still physically creating a new film, so duplicating isn’t as simple or as cheap as it might sound. You also have to ensure that the new film has minimal exposure to the old film during the duplication process, or else the fumes released by the acetic acid could start the process all over again in your new copies. 

Alternatively, you could decide to digitize these decaying files, turning them into PDFs or images instead. Processing a large number of film reels or fiche sheets can be time-consuming and expensive, but there’s no risk of further film decay with the end product, and it has the added benefit of making all that information compatible with digital information systems, and thus, with the rest of the world’s systems.

Problem 2 – Redox

Silver is a common component in the chemical soup used to create microfilm, and when it’s exposed to moisture in the air, it tends to oxidize, turning into red or orange splotches on the film. These patches can obscure important information on the microimages and once it’s set in they can’t all be removed. 

Solution – Kodak Brown Toner

Unlike Vinegar Syndrome, refilming might not be the best solution. Once the silver spots have developed, the fact that they’re opaque means that any copy images will have black splotches where the silver obscured the light shining through the original film. Instead, painting Kodak’s brown toner onto the film can clear up the newest blemishes, and prevent more from developing. If you catch the problem early, applying the toner can prevent it from ever being a problem in the future, and save you from the cost of re-filming. But most spots are there to stay once they’ve developed, and if you don’t catch the problem early, there’ll be no way to recover the lost information.

Problem 3 – Embrittlement

Exposure to heat, moisture, or acidic pollutants in the air or storage containers all cause the gradual decay of the plastics that compose the base of the film. As the plastics deteriorate, they release acids that can further damage the film. The result is brittle, inelastic film that can’t bend or twist without breaking or flaking apart. 

If your microfilm is stored on reels, then you won’t be able to unroll it without causing irreparable damage to it. If your microfilm is in the less common fiche form, you might be able to scan or refine it as is, but the further along embrittlement is allowed to progress, the more delicate the fiche cards in your sheets will become, making them vulnerable to the slightest twists and bends. 

Solution – Elasticity Solvents and Refilming

Although in the long run, embrittlement is irreversible, it is temporarily reversible if treated with solvents which return some degree of strength and elasticity to the film, for a little while. If done correctly, you can give your film enough elasticity to safely create copies. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the further an embrittlement problem advances, the less useful these solvents will be, and the less likely you are to be able to save your information; so it’s important to check up on your film regularly to screen for decay.

These are only a few of the ways your film records could decay, other problems include distortion/warping, decomposition of the gelatin base, silver fading or mirroring, and mould or fungus growth.

Duplication – Rarity

The other drawback of microfilm is the difficulty of duplication. The technology and expertise to create new microfilms have existed for decades and are still widespread. However, the market dominance of digital technology means that most film creation businesses have withered away, or have had to move on to other business models. The few that remain are usually the only service providers in their local area or have very little competition. 

Low competition means that you are stuck with whatever filming businesses are available locally; if they do a good job, then great, but if they don’t they’re still your only option unless you’re comfortable shipping your films several hours drive away to another business you trust more. Limited options also means little to no redundancy: if a filming shop in your area goes out of business or is waiting on rare replacement parts for some of their old machinery, you’ll be out of luck. 

In part 2, we’ll review the preventative measures recommended by experts to keep your microfilm viable for as long as possible, and attempt to answer the central question: Should you (still) be using microfilm?

Consentia has been working with microfilm files for decades, and our film specialists know how delicate and important your files are. For secure, reliable, high-quality digitization services, choose Consentia.

June 10, 2022

Information Security and Digitization: Is Digital More Secure?

So you’re thinking of digitizing your paper files. How will your information security be impacted?

Before we can answer that question, we have to be exact about what “information security” really means. Security, control over your information, is about controlling who can get it, and making sure you can access it when you need it. In other words, security = confidentiality + preservation.

If sensitive information is at risk of being stolen or leaked, then it’s not confidential, and not secure.

If important information is at risk of being lost or destroyed, then it’s not protected, and not secure.

Secure information is protected from both unauthorized access, and damage or loss. 

How will converting your paper files to digital change your ability to protect them from theft or loss? 

Right now, your physical files are stored in one place, and if anyone wants to access the information they contain, they’ll have to get their hands on them. When someone who’s authorized to access them needs to, they’ll need to go to where the files are or bring them along.

If someone who isn’t supposed to can get their hands on the files, they can steal your information, and you may never know. Worse, they could steal the physical file, depriving you of access to the information (unless you made a backup).

The upside is that if you do control who can get their hands on your files, then there’s no way for anyone to get unauthorized access. Storing sensitive documents in a safe or behind a locked door and controlling who can get through leaves thieves no way to get your information. By controlling proximity, you control access.

In terms of damage or loss of access, keeping your files in a controlled, weather-proofed storage location will ensure that flooding, water leaks, hostile temperatures, or physical damage, don’t wreck your files. Unless your files need strict temperature and humidity controls (e.g. old paper documents, film, photographs, etc.), you won’t have to depend on electricity or internet connection to preserve them or access the information they contain. Physical damage is your only concern.

How will your concerns change if you make the information digital?

For one, you won’t really have to worry about storage space anymore. The storage efficiency of digital technology is so much better than physical files that it’s hard to wrap your mind around. The last post talked about how a single, one-terabyte hard drive can store around 83 million pages of text. To give a sense of scale, all those pages (printed double-sided, on 0.05mm thick paper) stacked up together would be over two kilometres tall, more than three times the height of the tallest building in the world. Conversely, a one-terabyte external hard drive can probably fit in your coat pocket. 

But we’re talking about security, not convenience; why is storage efficiency relevant? Well, the space occupied by your important files is space that you need to protect. If your physical files take up 1000 sq ft of storage space, that’s 1000 sq ft that you need to protect from unauthorized access and environmental hazards like flooding. A smaller space means less to protect, so smaller costs and smaller risks. That 1Tb external harddrive can fit in a small safe or strongbox, making it much easier to secure against bad actors than 83 million physical paper pages.

Storage efficiency also helps with preservation, because it makes creating and storing duplicates easier. If you’ve got 83 million pages of paper documents to preserve, any duplicates you make for posterity will take up just as much space (not to mention costing a huge amount of money and time to print).

Or you could copy the digital files from one hard drive to another, which, depending on the processing speed of your computer, should only take a few minutes. Then you have a complete backup drive, ready to go when you need it, and small enough to conveniently store almost anywhere. Instead of having to build a new locked storage space for filing cabinets, just get another safe or strongbox, place the backup drive inside, and move it somewhere else. It’s that easy.

But digital storage has other benefits too: password protection, encryption, and access tracking. Assuming your drive is connected to a computer so you can view the files, password-protected user accounts let you record who’s gotten access to a file, making access by members of your organization more accountable.

Encryption lets you password protect the files themselves. Even if a drive or a user account password is stolen, the files will be useless without knowing the decryption key. Now proximity isn’t the only factor determining access; people need permission, or the technical aptitude to bypass permission controls.

But what about the internet?

This kind of digital storage is great for files you won’t need to access very often, but it doesn’t let you capitalize on one of the greatest benefits of digitization: instant connection via the internet. If your files aren’t just archives, you’ll probably need to share them occasionally, either with members or partners of your organization.

If everyone’s in the same place, this can be done through isolated intranet servers that let multiple computers access the same hard drives. But if your organization isn’t just localized to one facility, or if you need to share files with partners that can’t come by on short notice to pick up a hard drive, you’ll need to be able to access the internet.

Connecting your data storage to the internet presents serious risks. Now that you’re connected, bad actors looking to steal or meddle with your information don’t even have to be physically present to do so. All they need is sufficient aptitude with programming and they can bypass any account protections you put in place or use automated software to brute-force your passwords.

You aren’t completely vulnerable though. A competent I.T. team will know how to minimize cybersecurity risks. Adopting strong antivirus software, frequently changing passwords, and minimizing or eliminating the use of insecure storage devices like thumb drives, are all effective and low-cost measures for mitigating risk from online cybersecurity threats.

Encryption is another great way to reduce the risk because it means that even if someone can bypass all of your other cybersecurity measures, they’ll still need to know the decryption key before they can get your information.

Finally, requiring your organization’s members to complete training about good cybersecurity practices and principles will help protect you from phishing attacks and risky online behaviours (e.g. sending sensitive information with insecure emails, visiting or downloading from insecure sites, etc.).

But no cybersecurity is perfect. Exploring the risks and benefits of every available cybersecurity practice or software is well beyond the scope of this post, but it’s important to remember that there’s no way to be 100% sure when it comes to online information security. The field of cybersecurity is incredibly competitive and always changing. This is because cybersecurity professionals and practices are locked into a constant struggle with cyber criminals trying to steal information. 

Keeping your internet-connected information as safe as possible means competing for extremely high demand, industry-leading I.T. professionals, and being able to change your digital infrastructure and practices rapidly and frequently. The closer you get to perfect cybersecurity, the more difficult and expensive it gets to keep improving.

Perfect cybersecurity is impossible, and the next best thing can be very expensive. And even if your protection is as good as possible, just one breach can still compromise enormous amounts of information. 

How do I know what level of risk is acceptable for my organization?

For most organizations, it’s more reasonable to simply accept that internet-connected data storage will always have some degree of risk. Your organization will need to decide what level of risk is acceptable and cost-effective for its specific needs and circumstances. Though a full guide on cybersecurity practices is beyond the scope of this post, you should consider two broad factors in any cost-benefit analysis: the likelihood of being targetted, and the cost to your organization if an attack is successful.

How much of a target are you? Though thinking of your information as unsecured may be uncomfortable, any money and time spent on cybersecurity you don’t need is time and money wasted. If your organization and its data are not likely to be seen as a high-profile target, you don’t need to worry as much. But what makes you a high or low-profile target? Here’s a non-exhaustive list of some important factors to consider:

  1. How visible is your organization? – Less well-known organizations have less to fear from online hackers or malware for the simple reason that fewer people know they exist. This means that small businesses or businesses that don’t interact with the public very much are less likely to be targeted by cybercriminals.
  2. How big is your organization? – Bigger business means bigger budgets, thus, a bigger payout for cybercriminals. Even if an organization isn’t very publicly visible (e.g. industry-facing parts manufacturers), financially motivated cyber criminals will always look for big payouts. Even if they don’t or can’t directly steal your money, a ransomware attack can cost you millions of dollars. Cybercriminals expect that organizations with more money will be able to pay bigger ransoms and that they may even be more likely to pay large ransoms since the amount demanded represents a smaller portion of their revenue. 
  3. How many people do you employ? – In terms of information security, every employee that does their job using the internet is a potential point of failure. Phishing attacks are becoming increasingly common and sophisticated, and many people don’t know how to differentiate between deceptive and genuine correspondence over email. It’s not their fault, of course, not everyone has the time to familiarize themselves with cybersecurity news and practices; that’s what the folks in I.T. are for. Every employee is likely to be a target sooner or later, so it’s vitally important to educate your workforce against these kinds of imitative attacks.
  4. How important is your information to the world? – The more a piece of information matters, the more it will sell for on the black market. If your organization handles critically important files or data (e.g. SIN numbers, banking information, etc.), you’re likely to be a target regardless of your size or public visibility.

How important is information security to your business model? In economic terminology, Risk = Cost x Probability. If you’re a likely target, your probability of a cybersecurity breach is higher, but the cost depends on the nature of the information, as well as the importance of information security to your clients. Of course, any information entrusted to your organization as part of its business is important, and ought to be protected. But security breaches can be more costly for some businesses than others.

Anytime a financial institution has a digital security breach, people lose money, and the bank loses clients and reputation as a result. A non-profit organization that can’t safeguard confidential information will likely lose funding, donors, and reputation as a result, and be less able to accomplish its mission as a result.

The information collected by other businesses may not be as important, however, and so a cybersecurity breach wouldn’t be as devastating to their bottom line. Even if your organization’s probability of being targeted by cybercriminals or automated malware is low, if the cost associated with a security breach is unacceptable, you’re better off taking every precaution you can afford. Ask yourself “How would our clients/donors/constituents feel if we couldn’t protect their information?”

So, what does this all mean?

We started out by asking what digitization of your paper files will do for your information security. The answer to that question depends on how you choose to store the newly digitized information and how well you protect it.

Summary of Information Security Pros & Cons for Digitization Solutions

Let’s assume you’re going to take good care of your data. It’s a fair assumption, since you cared enough about it to read this far, and since information security is important to any organization that uses digital technology. This means employing (and listening to) competent I.T. professionals, taking reasonable precautions with local and online digital information, and providing your employees with some degree of training on good digital security practices. Anywhere you can improve security while remaining cost-effective, you do.

As for the choice of storage, which kind you choose will depend on your priorities. Almost every organization in the digital age needs to have some degree of internet connectivity, so you’ll probably need connected storage systems.

However, adopting a hybrid storage model where/when possible can give you peace of mind. Hybrid storage just means having both isolated and connected storage systems at the same time. Files that you don’t need to access very often, or that you cannot afford to risk, can be stored on an isolated drive or server so that there’s no chance of losing the cybersecurity race against hackers or malware. 

In order to keep the isolated storage truly isolated, you have to tightly control who can bridge the gap between them and how. The fewer members of your organization who can do this, the easier it will be to ensure it remains secure. Members given this responsibility should have a decent working knowledge of cybersecurity risks, and be rigorously vetted to make sure they’re trustworthy. 

The method in which the bridging happens also needs to be strictly controlled. Momentarily opening up a direct connection from an internet-connected server to an isolated server is out of the question, no matter how brief that connection is; because undetected malware can implant itself or send messages across that gap nearly instantly. If your information is important enough to put on an isolated server, then it’s just not worth the risk. 

Instead, using a secure external storage device to ferry files from one drive to another, only by those qualified and authorized members discussed earlier, is the safer way to go. If you want to be extra careful, you could maintain strict digital hygiene by requiring these members to check the ferry device for malware on a trusted machine between every use.

So, the final answer to the question: “Will Digitizing my files increase my information security?” Yes, if you maintain good digital security protocols, and use internet-isolated storage where possible.

For businesses like Consentia, a single information security breach could compromise an entire contract, not to mention the relationship with the client. That’s why we take every step we can to make sure that the only people who ever get access to our client’s information is the client themselves. 

When you give us your sensitive or confidential physical files for scanning, we make sure they stay locked behind two different locked doors at all times. All of our employees have passed criminal record checks and signed NDAs, and are also just people we know we can trust. Any and all cameras, including cell phones, are not allowed near physical documents. Any non-employees who come to the office are signed in when they arrive, supervised throughout their entire visit, and signed out when they depart. 

Our digital storage system, as well as any conversion process involving a computer, is done on an air-gapped server, completely isolated from the internet. Employees working on your data have password-protected user accounts, so access is only provided to authorized employees, and can be traced back to the individual. 

We are committed to ensuring your files stay safe and confidential the whole time they’re in our care. For secure digitization services you know you can trust, choose Consentia.

June 3, 2022

Will Paper Ever Be Obsolete?

In many ways, paper already is obsolete. Most of the modern world’s transmission and storage of information is done with digital technology, due to the speed and efficiency it offers relative to physical files. Most people are already intimately familiar with how close to instantaneous digital communication is, as we send each other messages over email, video chat, and social media many times everyday. 

The scale of its space-saving efficiency is a little harder to grasp though. Here’s an example:

A one terabyte hard drive, which can come as cheap as $50 on Amazon, can store over 83,000,000 pages of text. Printing all of those pages, single-sided, onto 0.1mm thick paper, would produce a stack over 8.3 kilometers high. That’s more than 10 times the height of the Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building in the world. If we scale that back to 0.05mm paper, and we print it double-sided, that’s still over 2 kilometers tall, still more than three Burj Khalifas. 

Standard consumer-grade printers can typically print between 20-40 black and white pages per minute, so one could print all those pages in anywhere from 34,580 – 69,170 hours, or 4-8 years of non-stop printing. Factoring in standard consumer ink and paper prices, which work out to about 5.4 cents per page, this monumental print job would cost you roughly $4.5 million. Or, you could use gigabit internet to download all of it onto your $50 hard drive in a little over 2 hours. 

So then if digital tech is that much more efficient than paper, why do most of us still interact with it on a regular basis? Important files are still created, copied, and stored in paper formats by governments, hospitals, large companies, and other organizations. Most of us still send or receive paper letters and flyers in the mail; have paper copies of our important documents like our bank statements and tax forms; and own at least a few hard-copy books. Digital equivalents exist for all of these purposes; and in fact digital tools are usually used to create these physical documents. So then why haven’t we gotten rid of paper entirely?

Bureaucratic Inertia

One big factor is just system-inertia; in simpler words: not having gotten around to it yet. We live in societies which have used paper for these purposes for centuries, and though change can come faster or slower, it is never instantaneous. Though it is often said that we are now living in the digital age, not everything which could be digital is yet. Organizations considering whether to implement a new system may be hesitant to trade a system which has been working reliably for something new and unfamiliar, or they may decide that the up-front cost of transitioning to a new solution isn’t justified by the benefits it offers. 

But technological and bureaucratic inertia cannot be the only factor, because new processes involving paper are implemented by organizations all the time. If inertia was the only factor, any new paper documents created would have to be part of processes and procedures that predate the onset of the digital age. Additionally, many efficient organizations continue to use paper where effective digital alternatives are readily available; it’s unlikely that this is solely due to bureaucratic inertia.

The fact that it’s still being used for new processes means that paper must have some benefits of its own that digital technology can’t provide; at least, not at the same low cost. The obvious advantages of paper are low-cost access, independence from technology, and high flexibility. 

Economic Inertia

Per page of text, digital is far cheaper to create, store, and share, but only if you have a digital system in place to facilitate those advantages. Despite the increasing digitalization of our modern world, there are many processes which would just not be as efficient if they were totally digital, due to the high up-front cost of establishing digital systems.

There are many processes or functions where paper and other non-digital information systems are used, for which there are reliable digital alternatives available:

  • A teacher printing off paper assignment sheets for his students could instead email PDF documents to their school email accounts, that they could complete on school-provided laptops or other devices.
  • A doctor taking paper notes during a check-up with a patient could instead type her notes into a computer, or use a stylus to write them onto a tablet, and then save or send them instantly.
  • The leader of an organization holding a team-meeting might print off paper meeting agendas, when he could instead share a list of discussion topics with one of the many digital teamwork tools available for free online.
  • A government department might use digital technology to type a letter addressing a member of the public, then print it on paper, and mail it to the individual, spending substantially more money to do so than it would have cost to send the same message via email. 
  • An advocacy group may print off paper flyers and brochures to get their message across to the public, when they could instead reach many more people through their phones via social media adverts.

For each of these examples, you might have been thinking: “but these do sometimes get digitized.” Well, you’d be right; but the point is that not all are. There is a common factor separating these realities from their possibilities: money. 

Well-funded institutions and successful corporations in prosperous societies may have sufficient financial access to these technologies to begin the process of complete digitalization. But for many others, adopting fully-digital solutions is prohibitively expensive. Until they receive better funding or experience greater success; or until the price of implementing and maintaining digital solutions decreases below an accessible threshold, such organizations will depend on paper to manage, communicate, and store their information. 

This advantage for paper is likely to evaporate as the world economy continues to grow and technology continues to advance. As developing societies build more and better electricity and internet infrastructure, the cost barrier for digital solutions recedes, both for domestic and foreign organizations. Unlike bureaucratic inertia, paper’s advantage of lower up-front cost will remain until the technological and/or economic circumstances of these processes change.

As these forms of inertia recede, more processes and businesses will transition into the digital world in order to harness the advantages digital systems provide. Digitization processes like paper scanning and document imaging will be at the heart of these transitions, as organizations seek to bring their old paper files into their new digital system. If economic growth and social progress continue internationally, there will one day be a point when these kinds of system-inertia dissipate, resulting in such digitization needs drying up completely. 

But even if this occurs, and we find ourselves in a maximally digital world all across the globe, it is unlikely that paper will ever fully disappear. As a physical, tangible format, paper has two key advantages over intangible digital formats: independence from technology, and near universal flexibility. 

Independence from Technology

As technology advances, the infrastructure which supports it must also advance in complexity and scale. Electronic hardware requires cheap, accessible electric power. Interconnected digital systems require cheap, accessible wireless and wired internet and intranet solutions. Mass production of new digital devices and accessories requires mines and factories and distribution centers in order to be built and then made available to the average person. Each new system and process which is added to the increasingly interdependent puzzle of the digitalized economy is one more point of failure which could disrupt the rest of the puzzle. 

Of course, there’s little need for alarm. For every point of failure there is a redundancy, a market feedback loop, or a public policy which can help mitigate the difficulties that result from a problem at one point in the system. But system disruptions caused by things like supply-chain bottlenecks, energy scarcity, or natural disasters can still cost your organization precious time and money if you’re not prepared. 

For a totally digital organization, a blackout means a complete stop to business until it’s resolved; a fully-remote organization will have serious problems if local internet infrastructure goes down. Without highly competent IT professionals, digital information security and efficiency can’t be assured. And those professionals can quit suddenly, become sick or incapacitated, and will sometimes make mistakes.

Paper offers a cheap, highly accessible redundancy for these kinds of inevitable (though hopefully rare) disruptions. Paper files won’t be affected by power failures, internet outages, or digital system malfunctions. 

Previously we’ve discussed at length just how much more efficient digital systems are than paper if you have enough funding and access to afford the upfront costs, so it’s by no means advisable to have complete paper backups for all of your files, especially when digital data can be so easily duplicated and decentralized. (Fully protecting your information with redundant digital back-ups is not just possible, it’s relatively easy.) But nothing can beat the certainty of a paper backup for a critically important document you may need at any moment. 

If you want a place to store a mass amount of information just in case you might need it someday, then redundant digital archiving in your own hard-drives or external cloud storage options are probably your best bet. But if you have important information you expect to use regularly and need to be able to access quickly, having paper back-ups might be a very good idea.

Input and Sharing Flexibility

Flexibility might sound like a strange advantage to award to paper over digital systems, especially when digital files can rapidly be changed into different formats, instantly sent to different people and locations, and such a variety of digital devices exist through which we can access those files.

However, this seeming flexibility is only possible because of the incredible variety of software available for interacting with digital information. Every ability that digital systems afford had to be conceptualized, then developed, then programmed into the software you’re using. 

For example: when you type out an email, every letter, font, or symbol has to be built into the system ahead of time. If you need to discuss a certain symbol or image, or use characters from another language’s alphabet, that needs to have already been an option in the system before you required it. 

By contrast, a piece of paper and a pen offer infinite possibility. Many powerful tools exist for taking notes on lectures, meetings, or documents; but the user needs to accommodate the way they use it to the options made available by the software developers. 

Want to change the layout or the formatting on a document you’re writing? You’ll usually have to search through multiple menus and options to get the options you prefer, if what you’re looking for exists in the software. With a piece of paper, you can write whatever you want wherever and however you want to on the page. 

Want to add a note in the margins? Better deselect the main text body and switch to a different input mode to add something; or select a portion to add a comment on the side that’s not a part of the document and probably locked into this particular file type. 

Sometimes, especially when sketching out or reflecting on an idea for the first time, you may not even know what kind of format or layout you want to use, so the infinite input-flexibility of paper is much more accommodating. 

And then there’s the occasional issue with compatibility between software. If your team or organization needs to adopt a new software tool, it needs to be one which is compatible with all your other tools for digital’s flexibility benefits to be realized. If your team wants to collaborate with a different organization or team, you may come to the table with very different tools and systems, and that mismatch can cause problems for productivity. Using paper meeting agendas, paper memos, lettermail, and signed forms save you from having to jump through technological hoops and headaches to share your information with partners. 

Not everyone can sympathize with these quibbles some of us have with digital systems, as many people are quite content with the digital tools available in their current forms. Input-inflexibility is also a declining problem for digital technology, as input methods become more and more diverse and accessible. The same could be said of sharing-inflexibility, as teamwork tools get more diverse and advanced, and market trends converge around just a handful of commonly used softwares (e.g. Teams, Zoom, Meets, etc.). Also some collaborations or teams just don’t have the option to stick with physical formats, if their business is online, or their partners prohibitively far away.

The infinite (though localized) flexibility of paper did not prevent it from being largely out-competed by digital alternatives, and it won’t prevent paper from becoming an even more rarely used system as more of the world gets access to those alternatives. But it may keep some amount of paper in our systems and institutions forever, as some individuals or teams do prefer it for its simplicity and certainty. 

Paper is already mostly obsolete. A single terabyte hard-drive contains more than 3 Burj Khalifas of paper information, costs a tiny fraction of the price to produce and store, and with modern internet speeds, it can all be transmitted anywhere in the world in just fractions of a second per page. And that’s only a tiny portion of most modern organizations’ data storage needs. By comparison, paper is expensive to print, stuck in one place, and takes up a lot more space. In terms of storage efficiency, accessibility, and ease of duplication, there’s no contest. 

Paper is also becoming increasingly obsolete as technological advancement and economic growth give more and more people access to digital alternatives. Not only does paper represent a minority of the world’s data storage, it’s a shrinking minority.

But it’s unlikely that paper will ever be totally obsolete. Paper doesn’t require expensive and occasionally dysfunctional technological infrastructure to serve its purpose. It provides a sense of certainty and reliability that can’t ever be fully matched by digital information. And it allows for an infinite flexibility of input that digital technologies can mimic, but only at much higher cost. For a lot of people, paper is a preference, and one that’s unlikely to evaporate any time soon.

It’s often said that we now live in a digital age, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we’re transitioning into one. It’s tempting to think that such a transition has a neat, tidy end point, at some point in the uncertain future, when all of our information management will be mediated by digital systems. Though it’s impossible to be certain, the reality is likely to be much too disorganized to have a clear, distinct end point; just as it did not have a specific, distinct starting point. Some amount of paper is likely to remain integrated into our information systems, even though the vast majority of the world’s data is managed digitally. 

Whatever the future holds, the smooth and productive coexistence of digital and analog information systems requires digitization. Organizations that keep paper in their processes will need to find streamlined, cost-effective ongoing digitization solutions if they want those documents to be compatible with the rest of their information. Other organizations will need accurate, efficient, and timely customized bulk scanning solutions to turn stacks of old paper records into more efficient digital files. Whatever steps your organization needs to take with digitization, Consentia can help you through it, with insightful consulting, or secure and efficient outsourced services. 

ABOUT CONSENTIA

Consentia helps organizations with digital transformation and data management. We provide document scanning, secure physical and cloud storage solutions, data entry, records management, transcription, microfilm and microfiche conversion services. We’re proud of our more than 50-year history of providing excellent data services to clients in Alberta and across western Canada. Specializing in document scanning and storage, along with precise data entry, we serve diverse sectors, including healthcare, education, financial services, public sector, and small businesses.

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