Compliance requirements for email and messaging: Does my company need it?

What do organizations need in order to make e-mail communications compliant? The most important component is a corporate e-mail policy. Based on relevant laws for their industry, compliance or risk officers should create corporate messaging policies that include compliance measures.

In addition to compliance with external legislation, companies also need to mitigate the risk of corporate liability and financial loss resulting from improper e-mail usage and lack of retention policies for corporate communications. Leveraging best practices and legal guidelines, organizations need to create and enforce corporate e-mail and messaging policies that address areas of potential liability such as: disclosure or transfer of intellectual assets, discrimination, harassment, client/attorney privilege, and other measures of due diligence protection against criminal and civil liability.

Compliance officers will find that most laws and corporate guidelines require the following e-mail capabilities in order to ensure compliance with e-mail policies: