This policy applies to all current and future students, staff, faculty and third parties with a CCA Google Workspace account.

Scope

The data retention schedules below apply to data associated with a user’s CCA/Google account in any of the following:

• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Google Calendar
• Google Sites
• Data stored in any other Google app for which the account holder is listed as the “owner”

Guidance on Retention of Google Workspace Data for Employees

Every employee is individually responsible for handling and maintaining institutional data, including email records, and files and documents stored in Google Drive. In some cases, emails or Google Drive documents can be used as evidence of official college actions, decisions, approvals or transactions. Examples include:

• Policy and procedure directives
• Substantive decisions regarding matters of college business
• Legal, discipline, or audit issues
• Approvals for purchases, HR decisions, and other actions to be taken
• Financial records including invoices and receipts
• Final reports or recommendations
• Student advising files
• Documentation of departmental/office actions, decisions, operations and responsibilities

In any of the above examples, it’s the responsibility of the employee to ensure that these records are retained in accordance with data retention schedules. There are several methods of doing so:

• Use a Shared Google Drive for files and documents that should be made available to others at the college after you leave.
• Use a system other than your individual email to document these activities, such as Workday, Portal, Salesforce or Teamwork.
• Save a copy of emails meeting the above criteria in a Shared Google Drive (we recommend the Save to Google Drive Chrome extension for this)

Separated Staff or Faculty Employees

Applies to any former staff or faculty employee who is terminated from their position at the college. This also applies to contract (aka contingent) employees whose contracts have ended.

Google account access is suspended immediately upon termination.

Google Workspace data will follow these retention schedules:

• Gmail records will be retained for a period of 7 years.
  • During the first year after separation, delegated access may be granted to the former employee’s supervisor or incumbent, upon request from the former employee’s manager, departmental leadership, or Human Resources
  • After the first year, Gmail records will be archived for the remainder of the retention period, and can only be accessed through a request to Help Desk.
• Google Drive files and documents will be retained for a period of 7 years
  • During that time, access may be granted to the former employee’s supervisor or others as appropriate.

The following exceptions apply:

• If the former employee’s data exceeds the allowable limit, Technology Services reserves the right to purge records.
• If the former employee’s data is requested as part of a legal proceeding, it will be retained until the proceedings are completed.

Departmental Gmail Accounts and Shared Google Drives

Applies to any Gmail account or Shared Google Drive established to manage departmental business.

Access to data in these Gmail accounts/Drives are retained indefinitely, and are not subject to this retention policy. Instead, these records are subject to the data retention policies specific to the data sets for which the Gmail/Drive has been established. For example, the Payroll Shared Drive is subject to the data retention policy of the Payroll Records dataset.

The following exceptions apply:

• The lead for the owning department requests to have the Gmail/Drive deleted, which will also delete all records in scope. Requests can be submitted to the Help Desk.
• The Gmail/Drive is no longer in use, as evidenced by a lack of activity for more than 1 year.
• The storage space in use by the Gmail/Drive exceeds the allowable limit.
  • At this time, storage is unlimited, but that is subject to change in the future.
  • If the storage space exceeds the allowable limit, the lead of the owning department will be informed, and will be given a maximum of 60 days to remove files/documents sufficient to reduce their storage to within the allowable limit.

Alumni

Applies to any student whose academic record is marked as “complete”, or who meet the criteria established by Alumni Relations to be classified as an alumnus.

Access to all data in Google Workspace will be retained for 1 year following program completion, with the following exceptions:

• The account holder requests to have their account deleted, which will also delete all records in scope. Requests can be submitted to the Help Desk.
• The account holder violates the Acceptable Use Policy
• The storage space in use by the account holder exceeds the allowable limit.
  • If the storage space exceeds the allowable limit, the account holder will be informed, and will be given a maximum of 30 days to remove files/documents sufficient to reduce their storage to within the allowable limit.

After the 1 year period has expired, all data associated with the alumnus' Google account will be permanently deleted.

Other Inactivated Students

Applies to any student whose academic record is inactivated and does result in the conferral of a degree. This includes students who are withdrawn or dismissed from the institution, pre-college students, students enrolled in non-degree programs, or who are otherwise discontinued.

Google account access is suspended 3 months after the effective date of student inactivation in Workday.

The student’s Google account and all records owned by the student will be permanently deleted 1 year after the date of withdrawal, dismissal or discontinuation.