Physical Records Transfer & Offsite Storage

Physical records that are no longer a part of daily office use can be transferred to an offsite storage facility for secure storage and retrieved back to the office when needed.

Government Information Management (GIM) Branch manages contracts with private records storage facilities to provide cost-effective and secure offsite storage and retrieval services for government. Storage facilities are bonded, insured and meet appropriate standards for records storage.

Once transferred to offsite storage, records are kept, destroyed or transferred to BC Archives according to their information schedules.

Monthly notices of records due to be destroyed or preserved are posted on the Government Information Management (GIM) Branch Self-Serve Portal (Internal site - IDIR required). Follow the link for additional instructions and to sign up for notification alerts.

Forms

• Request for a new Accession Number – Ministry and Non Ministry (BPS)

Use this form to request an accession number for your office.

• Request to Offsite Physical Records - Ministries
• Request to Offsite Physical Records - Non Ministry (BPS)

Submit the appropriate request form to have GIM coordinate the transfer of new boxes of records to offsite storage.

• Retrieval or Return (ARS 626-633) (PDF)

Email this form to the storage facility to retrieve or return records that are stored offsite (requestor must be on the authorized access list).

• Manual Box Content List (ARS661) (XLSX)

​Use this template to create a file list when you don’t have a system-generated list and need a template to produce a valid file list.