Records Retention & Disposition Schedule

ISO 15489 (records management) – cross-standard utility: every MS clause 7.5 says "control documented information" but this is the schedule that says WHAT records, HOW LONG, WHERE, and WHEN destroyed.

Field	Value
Document ID	DOC-RM-001
Owner	Records/compliance
Legal basis check	legal register ref
Review	Annual

Retention schedule

Record type	System/source	Owner	Retention	Trigger*	Storage	Protection	Disposition
Audit reports	QMS	@qa	3 years	creation	doc system	access ctrl	certified destruction
Personnel records	HRIS	@hr	tenure + 7y	termination	HRIS	restricted	legal hold check
Financial records	ERP	@fin	7 years	fiscal year end	ERP	restricted	archive
Contracts	legal	@legal	term + 6y	expiry	CLM	restricted	review then destroy
Security logs	SIEM	@sec	1 year	creation	SIEM→archive	integrity	auto-delete
Customer data	product DB	@dpo	per privacy policy	account close	prod	encrypted	per deletion SOP

*Trigger: event that starts the retention clock.

Rules

1. Legal hold overrides schedule – suspend destruction when litigation is anticipated.
2. Retention = the LONGEST applicable period (legal > regulatory > contractual > business need).
3. Disposal records: what, when, method, authorized by – destruction is itself a record.
4. Electronic records: retention applies to readable formats – plan for format obsolescence.

Disposal log

Date	Records	Volume	Method	Authorized	Witness