The use of contemporary business communication and collaboration tools including chat and instant messaging applications has resulted in a potential recordkeeping compliance gap where there is a legal requirement to retain business records. While in the past many organizations carved out these newer and less conventional forms of electronic business communications from their formal records retention practices, this approach has become increasingly less viable. Regulators have been responding with additional requirements and guidance for instant…

On 28 June 2017, the German telecommunications regulator (Bundesnetzagentur, “BNetzA”) decided to suspend enforcement of the provisions of the German Telecommunications Act which required providers of publicly available telephone services for end users and providers of publicly available internet access services for end users to retain certain metadata (e.g. number of the calling and called party, date and time of the connection etc.) from 1 July 2017 onwards. This follows an order of 22 June 2017,…