Chief Records Officer Directives & Guidelines
Last updated on March 19, 2024The Chief Records Officer (CRO) has the power to issue directives and guidelines under the Information Management Act (IMA). The head of a government body must take reasonable steps to ensure that the government body follows CRO directives and guidelines.
CRO 01-2023: Archiving of Government Information
Effective: October 1, 2023
This Directive places digital information scheduled for archiving on hold until September 30, 2025. Physical records ready to be archived are currently exempt from this requirement and can be transferred to the BC Archives at the Royal BC Museum.
-View the CRO Directive on Digitizing Government Information (PDF 151 KB)
CRO Memorandum: Retention of Chat Messages in Microsoft Teams
Effective May 31, 2021
Under the Information Management Act, the Chief Records Officer is responsible for policy relating to the retention of government information. Under that responsibly, the CRO has directed that standalone one-on-one chats, group chats, meeting chats be automatically deleted from MS Teams after 30 days. Conversations within a channel will be retained until manually deleted or the channel is decommissioned.
- View the CRO Memorandum: Retention of Chat Messages in Microsoft Teams (PDF 188.7 KB)
CRO 01-2020: Digitizing Government Information
Effective: July 2, 2020
This Directive announces the Digitizing Government Information Standard, which provides practice and technical requirements that must be followed when converting physical government information into digital form to create authentic, defensible digital records.
- View the CRO Directive on the Digitizing Government Information Standard (PDF 52 KB)
- View the Digitizing Government Information Standard (PDF 334KB)
CRO 01-2019: Documenting Government Decisions
Effective: March 31, 2019
The IMA requires that government bodies have an appropriate system in place for creating and maintaining government information that is an adequate record of their decisions. The CRO Directive on Documenting Government Decisions sets out the components of an appropriate system for creating and maintaining government information, and what constitutes an adequate record. The Guidelines expand on the Directive.