Mobile devices are ubiquitous in the modern workplace, with 75% of US employees using cell phones solely for work purposes. Employees utilize mobile devices to enable faster communication, decision-making, scheduling, and general productivity on the go. However, the extensive use of personal and company-issued mobile devices for business brings significant compliance risks that many organizations overlooked in the past, resulting in lawsuits, audits, and substantial fines. Several archiving compliance solutions help in staying compliant in text message archiving. This post explains why archiving text messages and mobile communication is so important.
Why is Mobile Archiving Essential?
The meaning of archiving data is to save data for the long haul in a digital vault. It’s a way of keeping important info safe and sound, so you can dig it up whenever you need to.
With instant messaging apps like WhatsApp handling over 100 billion daily messages, proper SMS archiving solution has become crucial for organizations across all industries to meet expanding regulatory retention and compliance requirements. Major regulations and standards like HIPAA, FINRA, SEC, GDPR, and state public record laws now clearly define mobile messages and other third-party communication as business records that must be retained under relevant jurisdictions. Despite regulatory bodies formally extending data retention rules to mobile data, research indicates only 50% of work-generated content is comprehensively archived.
Benefits of Archiving Mobile Communication
Beyond basic compliance, organisations are finding additional benefits in archiving mobile communication such as:
Ediscovery for Lawsuits and Investigations
Archived text messages, mobile voice data, and third-party app content can be quickly searched to uncover crucial evidence for lawsuits, internal investigations, and external audits. Built-in legal hold features also prevent tampering with relevant data.
Strategic Business Insight
Properly archiving and analyzing patterns found in mobile communication data can reveal valuable insights into company communication workflows, vendor relationships, and employee behaviour trends. These findings allow organizations to shape more effective policies and procedures.
New CYOD Policies Emerge
Rather than continue broad BYOD policies, many companies now allow employees to choose mobile devices from a limited, approved set. These CYOD (choose your own device) policies enable better security control, data management, and mobile archiving coverage.
Creating an Effective Mobile Archiving Process
Addressing mobile archiving requires continual, company-wide effort. Key steps include:
- Establish clear mobile device usage policies and foster employee awareness of compliance issues.
- Implement robust archiving solutions that capture multiple channels like email, text messages, and social media posts.
- Store archives securely with features that prevent data tampering.
- Provide powerful data filtering, keyword searches, and legal hold capabilities for eDiscovery purposes.
- Use interfaces that simplify compliance monitoring and auditing procedures for legal and management staff.
By taking a proactive approach to mobile communication archiving, organizations can boost workplace productivity while reducing legal risks and achieving greater visibility into institutional knowledge. The multitude of benefits strongly warrant adoption.
